The DS has become Japan's fastest to reach the 5 million units milestone.

In a press conference today, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata was proud to announce that their DS portable has reached 5 million units sold in Japan in less than 13 months, making it Japan's fastest gaming hardware to accomplish the feat:

"Selling 5 million units in less than 14 months means DS is the fastest among any game machines ever launched in Japan to hit that level.

To achieve this rapid growth, we were required not only to go after frequent game players, but to reel back people who had left games and to make video games enjoyable for those who had not played games at all."

Nintendo went on to compare the DS' impressive milestone with two other successful systems including Nintendo's own GBA (14 months to 5 million in Japan) and Sony's market-leading Playstation 2 (17 months). The DS has seen its most popular titles in Japan encompass forms of interactive entertainment not traditionally identified with video games, including Nintendogs, Brain Training for Adults and recent release Animal Crossing Wild World (all three of which have shipped more than 1 million units.)

Amazingly, the figure will be significantly higher before 2005 is done: Japan has another couple traditionally strong holiday sales weeks ahead that could potentially push the total close to 5.5 - 6 million units sold. The handheld first went on sale in Japan during December 2004.