USA Chart: Halo 2 leads November figures, San Andreas still going strong
Microsoft's Halo 2 has dominated the November sales chart for the United States, coming in at both number one (standard edition) and number three (limited edition) and racking up almost 3.3 million unit sales in total.
Microsoft's Halo 2 has dominated the November sales chart for the United States, coming in at both number one (standard edition) and number three (limited edition) and racking up almost 3.3 million unit sales in total.
The only title to rival the success of Halo 2 during the month was Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, which added over 1.5 million units to its tally in November, bringing total sales to almost 3.6 million units.
Further down the ranking, EA's Need for Speed Underground 2 had a strong debut, with the PS2 version coming in at number four and the Xbox version at number eight, and almost a quarter of a million sales recorded between the two.
THQ's WWE SmackDown! Vs. RAW was at number five, while EA's Madden NFL 2005 was at number six, Konami's Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater was at number seven, and the PS2 dominance of the charts wrapped up with Ratchet & Clank 3: Up Your Arsenal at number nine.
The only GameCube title to make it into the ranking was Nintendo's own Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, which slipped into the top ten at number ten with just shy of 200,000 sales over the course of the month.
Shortages of PlayStation 2 hardware are believed to have negatively impacted the performance of many of the key publishers, with even Grand Theft Auto San Andreas being a little below expectations in its performance.
While Activision saw a fairly substantial decline in year on year sales, with Tony Hawk Underground 2 currently running at almost 10 per cent lower sales than its predecessor, the biggest decline of the month was seen in Electronic Arts' market share.
The industry's top publisher saw its share slide 8 per cent and dollar revenues go down 25 per cent despite the strong performance of Need for Speed 2. PlayStation 2 shortages are blamed for a significant part of that shortfall, although the weak performance of titles including The Urbz and GoldenEye: Rogue Agent has also negatively impacted the company's market position.