Japan Charts: Valkyrie Profile knocks Mario off the top

Nintendo's New Super Mario Bros has been displaced in the number one position in the Japanese software charts at last this week, with Square Enix' PS2 RPG Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria selling over 280,000 copies in its first week to take the top spot.

Not that Nintendo's charge has slowed down much; New Super Mario Bros may have been relegated to the No.2 position, but it still sold over 170,000 units this week, and is now sitting at 1.85 million sold in total in Japan, and almost sure to break 2 million next week.

Despite the PS2 number one, the DS dominates the charts as usual - with six of the top ten titles being on Nintendo's handheld console, and all the usual familiar faces to be found - three brain training games, Animal Crossing: Wild World, and one newer entry in the form of Bandai Namco's RPG, Digimon Story.

On the PS2, one further new entry makes the grade, with SNK Playmore's King of Fighters XI in at number six, while the third new entry in the top ten is a rare appearance for a PSP game in the ranking - with Sega's "Pleasure for your Brain: Aha! Experience" coming in at number nine, with sales of 23,000 units.

That's a slightly disappointing number for the title, which has been hailed in some corners as the PSP's response to the brain training games on the Nintendo platform, but SEGA will undoubtedly be hoping that the title will pick up strong ongoing sales, as the brain training games have done.

On the hardware front, the DS Lite sold a further 157,000 units this week - bringing the total to almost 2.5 million - while the PSP and PS2 both sold around 25,000 units, and the original DS racked up over 10,000 units - meaning that the DS and DS Lite overall are close to selling 3.5 million units in Japan this year.