Final Fantasy III for Nintendo DS has sold half a million units during its first week of sale in Japan. This news is a follow-up to a story earlier this week that reported lines of several hundred long waiting for the game's release outside retailers in the early hours of the morning.
For comparison, the release of New Super Mario Bros. accomplished record-breaking Nintendo DS sales of 900,000 during its first week. The previous record-breaker was Brain Age 2 with sales of 850,000, which again took the title from Animal Crossing: Wild World's first week sales of 325,000. All three of these games have gone on to sell over 3 million units each.
The introduction of Final Fantasy III has also invigorated sales of the Nintendo DS Lite. The handheld sold over 160,000 units this past week. The second and third best selling hardware trailed those numbers -- the Sony PSP at 30,000 units and the PlayStation 2 at 22,000.