UK Charts: Liberty City Stories holds top spot; Mario debuts at No.2

Nintendo's latest DS title, New Super Mario Bros, has recorded the second biggest launch week ever for a DS title in the UK - but it wasn't enough to move the PS2 version of GTA Liberty City Stories off the top of the weekly software charts.

The latest instalment in Take Two's immensely popular franchise - a port of the PSP game of the same name which enjoyed significant success last year - held on to the number one position for a second week running.

New Super Mario Bros, meanwhile, couldn't quite top the stellar sales of Super Mario 64 DS, which launched alongside the console last year, but recorded an excellent opening week regardless and pushed EA's FIFA World Cup Germany 2006 out of the number two spot.

After years of tough sales for Nintendo's handheld products in the UK - with only the Pokemon franchise really recording serious numbers for the firm on the Game Boy and GBA devices in this market in the latter years - the firm will no doubt be pleased to see that the global success of the DS is making itself felt here at last with the launch of the DS Lite.

Alongside New Super Mario Bros in the top ten, Dr Kawashima's Brain Training also continues to perform strongly on the DS, and slips just one place this week to number four, with sales down by a marginal four per cent over last week - although whether it can replicate its chart longevity in Japan, where the title has sold over two and a half million units and remained in the top ten for over twelve months, remains to be seen. Nintendogs: Dalmatian and Friends, meanwhile, is still hanging on in the top ten - it's at number nine this week, down from number seven - as is Animal Crossing: Wild World, holding steady at number ten to make it a total of four DS titles in the top ten.

Elsewhere in the chart, football titles are predictably the order of the day - FIFA World Cup Germany 2006, as mentioned, has lost its number two position but slips only a single place to number three, while Pro Evolution Soccer 5 is down one place to number five. Outside the top ten, Eidos' Championship Manager 2006 is down one place to number 16, four places ahead of SEGA's rival product Football Manager 2006, which drops six places to number 20, and Codemasters' Sensible Soccer 2006 drops out of the top ten with a nine-place tumble to number 18.

In terms of new releases, three new games entered the top ten this week - New Super Mario Bros at number two, of course, but also Ubisoft's Over G Fighters (which is being published on behalf of Taito) at number 13, while THQ's PC title Titan Quest enters at number 25 in the all-formats chart.