Final Fantasy XIII: Fastest Selling FF - CONFIRMED

Okay, yeah. All I do these days is sit at home looking up random information about FFXIII and telling you guys about it. That's of course when I'm not at my day job ... Which is playing it.

Coming straight outta IGN are the latest sales figures for the title that had it's North American launch earlier this month:

Square-Enix announced Final Fantasy XIII has recorded the largest first-week sales in the franchise's history. The game has sold over one million units in North America in its first five days on sale for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, according to the company's internal estimates.

Not exactly shocking to anyone who's been following the coverage the game's been getting since it got off the boat. Slightly more interesting are the entire franchise numbers.

The series has now sold a total of 96 million units globally since the original Final Fantasy game was released in Japan in 1987 for the Nintendo Entertainment System.

If my research is correct (which amounts to little more than quickly scanning Wikipedia), these figures place the Final Fantasy series at roughly double that of the Legend of Zelda series and just under half that of the Mario series. It also places it at nearly twice that of Japan's sweetheart: the Dragon Quest series. This of course means that Square Enix and Final Fantasy's favorite-child-but-don't-tell-the-others relationship is continuing to mature at a steady pace.

Steady and awkward.