UK Charts: San Andreas tops a million sales in nine days

Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas has smashed yet more UK sales records, selling over a million units in just nine days - making it into the fastest selling game, the fastest to hit a million units, and the fourth biggest selling PS2 title ever.

The game topped the UK charts yet again this week, selling more in its second week on sale than its predecessor, Grand Theft Auto Vice City, managed in its release week, and setting it well on the way to becoming the nation's best selling game ever.

Elsewhere in the chart this week, EA's FIFA 2005 held on to second place, while Sports Interactive had a strong debut for Football Manager 2005 - the first football title to be released by the studio since their split with Eidos last year, which saw them losing the Championship Manager brand which they had created.

Football Manager 2005 didn't quite manage to match the sales of previous Championship Manager titles - it comes in at number five in the league tables of PC fast-selling titles, while Championship Manager 4 is at number one - but publisher Sega will no doubt be delighted with the performance of the new brand regardless.

Konami's Pro Evolution Soccer 4 is at number three this week, and should receive a substantial boost later in the month when the Live-enabled Xbox version and the PC version launch together on November 19th.

In terms of new releases, Electronic Arts' RPG title Lord Of The Rings: The Third Age comes in at number 12 in the chart, while Atari's Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 debuts at number 26, and THQ's Pixar double pack of Finding Nemo and Monsters Inc on GBA arrives at number 33.

The top-rated Xbox game of the week is FIFA 2005, while in second place is Fable - which charts at number 39 in the All-Formats chart. The GameCube fares rather worse, with top-ranked title Donkey Konga nowhere to be found in the All-Formats Top 40, although Nintendo can take solace in the continued strong sales of Pokemon Fire Red and Pokemon Leaf Green on GBA, which are at numbers 15 and 17 respectively this week.

Next week's chart sees the arrival of Halo 2 on Xbox, with Microsoft undoubtedly hoping that San Andreas' retail dominance will have died down sufficiently to give them at least a week at number one, while strong performances will also be expected from Sony's Ratchet & Clank 3 and The Getaway 2: Black Monday, EA's The Urbz: Sims In The City, Nintendo's Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap and Paper Mario 2: The Thousand Year Door, and THQ's WWE SmackDown! Vs. Raw, in what looks set to be of the busiest weeks of the year for key new releases.