UK Charts: EA tackles Sega for second place
Football rules the top of the all-formats chart once again this week, though there has been some last minute line-up changes as EA's <i>FIFA 06</i> jostles back into second place, knocking SEGA's <i>Football Manager 2006</i> down to third.
Football rules the top of the all-formats chart once again this week, though there has been some last minute line-up changes as EA's FIFA 06 jostles back into second place, knocking SEGA's Football Manager 2006 down to third.
LucasArts claim the highest new entry at number six with Star Wars: Battlefront II, set to ride Star Wars frenzy following the DVD release of Episode III. Both Take 2's The Warriors and Nintendo's Pokîmon Emerald hold firm in fourth and fifth place respectively, despite a promising 58 per cent sales increase for Take 2.
Activision takes a leap from eighth to seventh place with the web-slinging Ultimate Spiderman while the seventh iteration of its Tony Hawks franchise debuts at number nine. The most dramatic leap this week goes to Sony for its SingStar PopWorld karaoke title, which has seen a phenomenal climb of some twenty-one places from 31 to ten. Other notable movers include Midway's L.A. Rush and EA's SSX on Tour, both of which have jumped five places, resting at twelve and fifteen respectively.
The PC market isn't fairing too well overall, with Vivendi's F.E.A.R. and Activision's Quake IV disappearing from the top ten listings and nestling uncomfortably at the lower end of the top 20. PSP software sales have benefited from a pre-Christmas spike, with a new entry at number three for SSX on Tour and several titles climbing the ranks in the top ten.
Specific sales charts for Nintendo's DS and GameCube, Sony's PS2 and Microsoft's Xbox remain relatively static at the top end, with the Nintendogs phenomenon gripping DS owners in a manner only EA can normally achieve.
New releases this week, which could have a toppling effect on the chart line-up, include Sony's SingStar 80's and EyeToy Play 3, Activision's Call of Duty 2 and the multi-format console release of The Sims 2 from Electronic Arts. As more and more seasonal releases emerge, the charts are set for rapid and continuous change, while publishers fight for that all important Christmas number one.