Nintendo DS breaks the two million mark down under

Despite selling a mere 20,000 consoles during its launch week in 2005, the Nintendo DS has proved sceptics wrong by breaking records left, right, and centre. Adding another trophy to the House of Mario's already impressive cabinet, Nintendo Australia has announced that the Nintendo DS has just broken the record for fastest console to sell two million units down under, having moved those units in 221 weeks.

Since its launch in 2005, the Nintendo DS platform has gone through two hardware revisions, the first being the Nintendo DS Lite in 2006, and the second being the more recent Nintendo DSi launch on 2 April this year.

When contacted by GameSpot AU, data tracker GfK Australia was able to confirm that Sony's PlayStation 2 was the previous record holder to reach two million, and that the DS had smashed that record by a significant amount of time. The next record in the Nintendo DS's sights is the 2.4 million total install base of the PS2.

In other Nintendo DS news, the highly anticipated music game Rhythm Heaven has been given a June 4 release date. The game features dozens of minigames to play, each of which has a different beat, forcing players to adjust to the change of music and the requirements of each game.