Final Fantasy XII ships 1.5 million

Like a particularly devastating "summon" spell, Square Enix bombarded North American retailers last week with 1.5 million copies of Final Fantasy XII. The publisher announced today that the mass shipment represents the largest day-one North American availability of any game in the publisher's history.

Final Fantasy XII set that record due in part to another Square Enix milestone. While it was far from the first Final Fantasy game Square Enix has released, Final Fantasy XII was the first time the publisher had ever set a concrete street date for one of its North American product launches. While all of the company's previous games shipped out on a certain date and gradually went on sale as the games arrived at different retailers over the course of a few days, Square Enix made sure all of its retail partners received their copies of Final Fantasy XII early and held onto them until the official October 31 release date.

Even if every last one of those copies has been sold, Square Enix still has a ways to go before the game duplicates the success it experienced overseas earlier this year. Final Fantasy XII has already racked up more than 2.4 million sales in Japan since its release there in March of this year. For more on the game, check out GameSpot's full review.