After being cast down to number two last week, New Super Mario Bros for DS has regained its place at the top of the Japanese video game sales charts for the week ending July 2nd, with sales still above the 100,000 unit milestone in its sixth week on sale. Overall game sales have been down this week, according to chart compiler Media Create, although indications are the drop is well within the norms for this time of year. The only real surprise, though, is a significant drop in sales for Square Enix's Valkyrie Profile 2 for PS2, which now stands little chance of equaling the sales success of its predecessor. The second highest new entry of the week is PlayStation 2 title Super Dragon Ball Z, although it has performed less well than many other titles using the same license – which same may now consider overused. Once again, it seems that the more atypical PSP titles have the best chance of penetrating the Japanese top ten, with Sony’s unusual adventure title Boku no Natsuyasumi Portable entering at number eight. Also once again, the Nintendo DS has sustained remarkably high hardware sales, which seem all the more impressive in the light of recent revelations concerning the still limited stock of the system in Japan. Total sales for the format amounted to 157,070 units (including 3,504 units of the original hardware), compared to 25,935 for its nearest rival, the PSP. PlayStation 2 sales were put at 23,133, with the Game Boy Advance family of consoles at 4,379 combined. With the release of Sega’s Chrome Hounds at number sixteen in the software sales charts, with 9,600 unit sales, the Xbox 360 rallied slightly this week with 1,897 units sold, ahead of the GameCube at 1,002 units.

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