After releasing on March 9th, Square Enix’s Final Fantasy XIII has managed to sell an impressive one million units in North America alone during its first five days on sale, making it the biggest first-week launch in the history of the franchise, the publisher says.

Releasing across two platforms in North America and Europe (Xbox 360 and PS3), on launch Square Enix announced that the company had shipped over three million units of Final Fantasy XIII to these regions.

An additional two million units have already been shipped and sold in Japan alone – after releasing on December 17th, and by in the end of the first week on sale on the PS3 only, Final Fantasy XIII had sold 1.5 million units, and by the end of 2009, a total of 1.8 million copies had made their way around the region.

Final Fantasy XIII was also announced to be the fastest-selling game in the UK for 2010 on its debut week on sale, taking the crown from games such as Mass Effect 2, Bioshock 2, Aliens VS Predator and Battlefield: Bad Company 2.

You can read El33tonline’s own review of Final Fantasy XIII to see what the fuss is about, and browse through our previous coverage for bunches of amazing screenshots and videos.