Japanese Software: New Kingdom Hearts Dethrones New Super Mario Bros.

Square Enix's Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep for PSP overtook the dominant New Super Mario Bros. Wii in Japanese sales for the week ended January 10, Media Create said Thursday. Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep sold 446,000 units, the tracking firm said--a figure reached in just two days on the Japanese market. The game is a prequel to the 2002 PlayStation 2 game Kingdom Hearts, which launched the RPG series that mixes Disney and Square Enix characters. New Super Mario Bros. Wii has been hovering at or near the top of the weekly Japanese charts since its debut on December 3, 2009. The game sold 2.9 million units in the region through January 10, Media Create said. The weeks-old title still had a strong showing this most recent week, selling 159,000 units. Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep was the only new game to break Media Create's top 10 list, which remained relatively static. The only game to fall off of the charts from the prior week was Level 5's Professor Layton and the Flute of Malevolent Destiny for Nintendo DS. Sales of Final Fantasy XIII, a game that topped Japanese sales charts when it launched in mid-December, were 42,000 for the week, bringing sales of the game to over 1.8 million units in the region. Below are Media Create's Japanese sales charts for the week ended January 10: