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Diamonds and Pearls: America prepares for Poke-Mania

Over 533,000 US pre-orders taken, but still no Euro date

Diamonds and Pearls: America prepares for Poke-Mania
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DS
| Pokemon Diamond

Since its Japanese release last September, over five million copies of Pokemons Diamond and Pearl have been sold, with the Diamond flavour slightly outselling Pearl. (Who knows why? If diamonds are a girl's best friend, we guess there's no reason her boyfriend's best friend shouldn't be Pokemon Diamond.)

With the US release date mere days away (April 22nd), Nintendo America has announced it's collected over 533,000 pre-orders for the game, meaning it will be the fastest selling DS game ever in both territories.

This figure is also more than double the pre-orders for 2004's Pokemons FireRed and LeafGreen, which combined went on to sell more than 3.4 million copies in North America.

Indeed, we'd bet that before the end of the year, Pokemon Diamond / Pearl will have become the top-selling DS game ever, overcoming the nine million plus copies currently sold of New Super Mario Bros.

Still, it would be nice to know when the game will be released in Europe wouldn't it? Most people assume (or rather hope) it will be available sometime in June or July. It's not beyond the realms of possibilities, however, that this might slip into September, particularly if US sales go through the roof and drag attention away.

It will be worth the wait though... just check out our review.

Jon Jordan
Jon Jordan
A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon can turn his hand to anything except hand turning. He is editor-at-large at PG.biz which means he can arrive anywhere in the world, acting like a slightly confused uncle looking for the way out. He likes letters, cameras, imaginary numbers and legumes.