One in 250 Americans owns Pokemon Diamond or Pokemon Pearl already

Nintendo of America has just revealed it's sold one million copies of Pokemon Diamond and Pokemon Pearl in a mere five days. That's enough to make it the nation's fastest-selling Pokemon title ever.

Nintendo's decade-long campaign to take over the world with Pokemon seems to be reaching its final stages. Since the collect-'em-up first appeared in 1995, it has sold 155 million copies, and sent the world and the chattering classes through various paroxysms as Pokemon fever has waxed and waned.

Until last year, it seemed the game was dead and buried, along with BritPop, pagers, Tony Blair's smile and Boo.com (okay, so a gazillion versions came out but we mean as a phenomenon). But you can never write off Nintendo, whose ability to keep resurrecting the classic gaming icons in its stable would impress even Zombie reanimator George Romero.

Pokemon Diamond and Pokemon Pearl has sold a further five million copies in Japan, and we can't wait for the 100 new wi-fi battling critters to make their way here, as DS fever seems inevitably likely to follow. Infuriatingly though, we're still waiting for an official European release date.

In the meantime, don't miss our Pokemon Diamond and Pearl review. (By the way, we know it should be Pokemon with a funny 'e' after the 'p', but it messes up in too many browsers, so we're dropping it for now!)