Madden tops North American software sales chart for 2006

Market analysts NPD have published a list of the top ten best-selling games in North America for 2006, with the PlayStation 2 version of Madden NFL 07 at number one.

More than 1.8 million copies of the game have been sold so far, and it's one of five PS2 titles in the chart - Kingdom Hearts II is at number three, followed by Final Fantasy XII at six, Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories in seventh place and NCAA Football 07 in eighth.

Second position goes to New Super Mario Bros., which sold around 1.5 million copies. Fellow Nintendo DS game Brain Age finishes off the chart at number ten, having racked up sales of more than 790,000 units.

There are three Xbox 360 titles listed, with platform exclusive Gears of War at number four. More than 1 million copies of the game have been sold so far and it's the most popular title on Xbox Live.

GOW is followed by Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter in fifth place (913,000 units sold), and the 360 version of Madden NFL 07 in ninth (826,000 units).

The chart was published by USA Today. NPD has yet to release complete hardware sales figures for 2006, but has issued preliminary estimates which suggest that Xbox 360 won the battle for Christmas cash - beating the Nintendo Wii by a small margin.