Big in Japan Jan. 18-24: Valkyria Chronicles 2

After two weeks playing second fiddle to Kingdom Hearts' PSP debut, New Super Mario Bros. Wii recaptured the top spot in the weekly sales chart for Japanese tracking firm Media Create . For the week of January 18-24, Nintendo's multiplayer mascot platformer tallied 110,918 sales, good enough to regain the best-seller designation.

Sega's PSP turn-based strategy game Valkyria Chronicles 2 gave New Super Mario Bros. Wii a run for gamers' money, debuting in second place on the charts with 94,444 copies sold. Trailing in third place with more than 76,000 copies sold was the week's other big new release, Namco Bandai's anime-based 3D fighting game Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha A's Portable: The Battle of Aces.

Sales for the best-seller of the previous two weeks, Square Enix's Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, sagged significantly. The latest entry in the publisher's Disney crossover line fell to fourth place with nearly 60,000 units sold, down more than 65 percent week-over-week. The remainder of the software chart was filled with familiar faces, including a reentry to the charts for Capcom's Monster Hunter Freedom Unite, which was recently rereleased in a budget package.

On the hardware front, there was little change. Every system saw sales declines from the week before, but the pecking order was unchanged. The PSP took first place with nearly 53,000 sold, while its digital distribution-bound cousin the PSP Go was dead last with fewer than 1,800 new systems sold. On the console front, the Wii once again came out on top, with its 45,167 tally easily besting the PlayStation 3's 26,966 systems sold. Meanwhile, Microsoft no doubt can't wait for the recently announced Monster Hunter Frontier to hit Japanese Xbox 360s, as the system sold a relatively meager 3,343 systems for the week.

JAPAN GAME SALES WEEK OF JANUARY 18-24, 2010
Software:
Rank / Title / Publisher / Platform / Unit sales
1) New Super Mario Bros. Wii / Nintendo / Wii / 110,918
2) Valkyria Chronicles 2 / Sega / PSP / 94,444
3) Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha A's Portable: The Battle of Aces / Bandai Namco / PSP / 76,088
4) Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep / Square Enix / PSP / 59,566
5) Tomodachi Collection / Nintendo / DS / 45,002
6) Wii Fit Plus / Nintendo / Wii / 33,640
7) Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles / Capcom / Wii / 23,245
8) Monster Hunter Freedom Unite / Capcom / PSP / 16,117
9) Wii Sports Resort / Nintendo / Wii / 15,753
10) Inazuma Eleven 2: Kyoui no Shinryokusha - Fire and Blizzard / Level 5 / DS / 13,951

Hardware:
PSP - 52,909
Wii - 45,167
PS3 - 26,966
DSi XL - 24,059
DSi - 20,373
DS Lite - 4,966
Xbox 360 - 3,343
PS2 - 2,088
PSP Go - 1,773