Nintendo ships 3m copies of Animal Crossing DS

Nintendo has announced that DS title Animal Crossing: Wild World has proved to be a huge hit with consumers and retailers, with more than 3 million copies shipped worldwide.

Wild World allows players to explore their own unique Animal Crossing town, to make friends with the local inhabitants, upgrade their houses and to visit other players' homes via the Wi-Fi Connection service. The game launched in Europe on March 31st, by which time 2 million copies had already been sold in Japan.

It's proved so popular, in fact, that a big screen adaptation is on the way. Japanese director Jouji Shimura will take the helm for the animated movie, which is set to hit cinemas over there this December.

Animal Crossing: Wild World joins the likes of Mario Kart DS and Nintendogs on the list of multi-million selling DS titles. More than 6 million copies of Nintendogs have now been sold, and Nintendo is hoping that forthcoming mind training title Brain Age will also prove to be a success when it launches in Europe on June 9th. More than 1.8 million copies of the first instalment in the Brain Age series have been sold in Japan since the game was released there last May.