Activision ships 2 million units of Spider-Man 2

Publisher Activision has shipped two million units of movie tie-in Spider-Man 2 to retail worldwide since the game launched last week - while the movie has smashed US box office records with the largest opening weekend ever.

The game launched alongside the opening of the movie in North America and a number of other territories last week; it will arrive in the UK and a number of other countries this week, slightly ahead of the launch of the film on the 15th of July.

For the second iteration of the Spider-Man game franchise, Activision and developer Treyarch chose a much more open-ended style of gameplay, which has been compared by some commentators to the Grand Theft Auto model of play. Critical reaction to the game has so far been strong, although few full reviews have appeared.

Perhaps more importantly for the game's prospects, however, the Spider-Man 2 movie has smashed box office records in the USA on its opening weekend - breaking the records set by the first Spider-Man movie in 2002 with a $40.4 million opening day, and $115.8 million for the whole weekend.

The race is on, then, to see which of Driv3r and Spider-Man 2 will be the biggest gaming hit of the summer. Atari's Driv3r shipped 2.5 million units to retail in advance of its launch late last month, and currently holds number one chart positions in most major global territories; Activision will be hoping to unseat it from those top spots this week as the webslinger gets into his stride both at game retail and in cinemas.