Nintendo’s Wii has become the world’s fastest selling console, with more than 50m units sold since its 2006 launch.

Speaking at the ongoing Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, Satoru Iwata, Nintendo’s President, described the sales achievement as “even beyond what we possibly hoped for”.

The Wii sales figure is quite an achievement. By contrast, sales of Sony’s PlayStation 2 only reached 50m in North America at the start of 2009 – but the console’s been available there since 2000.

Admittedly, global PS2 sales are double those of the Wii, but again, the Sony console’s been available for a much longer period.

Global Xbox 360 sales stood at just under 28m as of January, with the Microsoft console having been on the market since 2005.

Sony’s PlayStation 3 had sold just over 21m consoles by the end of last year, with its birth dating back to 2006.

Iwata also revealed that the latest incarnation of its DS handheld console – the DSi – has already sold over 2m units since launching in Japan late last year.

The DSi won’t be available in the UK until early April. It’ll cost £145 ($211/€155). ®