New Super Mario Bros. 2 outperforms original by 30% at launch

Last week, we brought you the news that New Super Mario Bros. 2 for Nintendo 3DS was selling rather well in its native Japan.

In fact, Mario's latest adventure topped the charts over there, displacing monster hit Dragon Quest X in the process.

That's a bit like... some big UK pop star replacing an even bigger pop star in the charts. Sorry, I'm not very up on what the kids are listening to these days. Are The Cheeky Girls still popular?

Anyway, New Super Mario Bros. 2. It's selling very well. According to trade mag MCV, in fact, Nintendo sold 29.4 per cent more launch units of New Super Mario Bros. 2 than it sold of the original New Super Mario Bros. - and that was on the über-popular Nintendo DS console.

Of course, New Super Mario Bros. was one of those DS games with a tail as long as a super-sized Bowser - Ninty shifted bucketloads of it over a sustained period. The real test will be whether New Super Mario Bros. 2 can keep it up in a similar manner.