UK Charts: The Sims 2 stays on top despite strong challenge from new releases

Electronic Arts' The Sims 2 remains at number one in the UK software charts this week, beating off a challenge for the top spot from Lucasarts' Star Wars Battlefront, which comes in at number two.

Battlefront - published by Activision in the UK - rolled out across Xbox, PS2 and PC, and the timing of the launch was undoubtedly a factor in its success, as the game capitalised on the hype created by the release of the original Star Wars trilogy on DVD.

In total, five new releases make it into the top ten, in one of the busiest weeks of the year so far. EA's Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2005 comes in at number four, selling almost twice as many copies in its debut week as last year's iteration of the series did, while THQ's Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War is this week's big PC release, debuting at number five.

Another Activison title breaches the top ten, with Call of Duty: United Offensive coming in at number nine, while Codemasters' Colin McRae Rally 2005 slips into the ranking at number ten.

After a lengthy period of seeing old titles fill out the ranks of the top ten, this week's ranking is the "freshest" of the year so far, with only one title (VU Games' The Simpsons: Hit and Run, at number eight thanks to a budget relaunch recently) being more than a month old.

EA's Burnout 3 continues to sell strongly, and is at number three this week, while Capcom's Resident Evil: Outbreak drops two places to number six and SCi's Conflict: Vietnam is down four places to number seven.

Further down the chart, there are another two major releases to be found. Nintendo's Animal Crossing comes in at number 19 (number 14 in the full-price only chart), which is a respectable enough performance given both the niche nature of the title, and the incredibly long delay in bringing it to Europe after its US and Australian launches.

Atari's Terminator 3: The Redemption, meanwhile, debuts at number 24 despite a low price point - UKP 19.99 - and a release across all major console formats. Given the strength of the license, and the fact that the game has generally reviewed quite well, this seems like an exercise in crippling the commercial worth of a valuable franchise - with consumers presumably being dissuaded by memories of the last, dreadful, Terminator 3 title.

Next Friday is another busy one for UK retailers, as EA releases Def Jam: Fight for New York on all the consoles, Sega launches OutRun 2 on Xbox, UbiSoft has Star Ocean: Till the End of Time on PS2 and Obscure on PS2, PC and Xbox, Midway's Psi-Ops arrives on Xbox and PS2, Capcom's Viewtiful Jow rolls out on PS2, and Vivendi's Evil Genius appears on PC, as does the PC port of THQ's Full Spectrum Warrior.

And then, of course, there's the small matter of Pokemon Fire Red and Pokemon Leaf Green, Nintendo's latest instalment in the enormous franchise, which both arrive on GBA next week. While our money is on the combined sales of the two games to easily take the top spot, it's hard to call whether one of them will actually come in at number one given the strength of next week's line-up, and of the titles already driving the pounds through UK retail tills.