According to Nintendo, the newest installment of the hit global gaming franchise, Pokémon sold over 1.08 Million copies of the Black and White versions in the first day, breaking a US one day sales record previously held by Pokémon Diamond Version and Pokémon Pearl Version games which sold more than 780,000 on the first day in April 2007.

“These sales numbers illustrate the continued strength of the Nintendo DS family of systems,” said Charlie Scibetta, the Corporate Communications Director at Nintendo of America.

“Already established as the nation’s best-selling video game platform of all time, the installed base of more than 47 million makes it the ideal hand-held for developers to reach a huge gaming-focused target audience,” he added.

The new Black and White versions of the game add 150 creatures, bringing the total to 640. Gamers are encouraged to collect the creatures and can battle with people that they know but also strangers thanks to the DS’s Wi-Fi connectivity, reports the PressofAtlanticCity. The new Pokémon games are also based in the United States.

When asked why he changed the venue by Computerandvideogames, Pokémon Black/White director Junichi Masuda answered, “appealing to an international audience is one of the reasons, but there are also others, too. One is that I organize musical concerts in Japan based on the setting of the regions in the past titles, like Johto, Kanto and Hoenn. Then I thought if I could hold another concert somewhere else, where should it be? And I thought perhaps New York would be a good place to choose. That’s why we used the US as the setting for this new region.”

Pokémon is the second largest gaming brand in the world after Mario Brothers, and has sold over 210 million games through September 2010.