Nintendo Announces March 6 Date For Pokemon Black/White in North America

The latest Nintendo DS titles in the top-selling Pokemon series -- the paired Black Version and White Version -- will be available in North America on March 6, 2011, Nintendo announced today. The games' September 18 launch in Japan saw sales of 2.63 million in their first weekend on 1.5 million combined pre-orders. That's over 66 percent more launch sales than 2006's launch of Pokemon Diamond and Pearl, the first Nintendo DS entries in the series. Pokemon Black and White continued to top the Japanese sales charts through October and helped increase Japanese sales for the Nintendo DS hardware as well. From the series' beginnings in 1996 through May of this year, Pokemon titles (including spin-offs) have sold a total of over 200 million copies, according to Nintendo. Pokemon Diamond and Pearl sold just over 17 million units worldwide. In addition, recent Nintendo DS re-releases Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver have sold more than 8.4 million copies worldwide, according to statistics from Nintendo and other worldwide sales-monitoring organizations. As with previous Pokemon releases, the Black and White iterations include slightly different lists of collectible Pokemon, including legendary Pokemon that are exclusive to each title. The games also feature a new season-changing system that will affect which Pokemon will appear.