USA Chart: San Andreas dominates October, outsells remainder of top ten

Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas has enjoyed a spectacular debut in North America, according to figures from NPD Funworld which show the game selling more than the remainder of the top ten combined in October.

Over two million units of the PS2 exclusive title were sold by the end of October, suggesting that day one sales may indeed have been eclipsed by Microsoft's Halo 2, but still representing one of the fastest-selling games ever.

Sales of San Andreas are expected to continue strongly through to Christmas and beyond, with over four million units of the crime caper already thought to have been sold worldwide - over a million of them in the UK.

Further down the chart, Electronic Arts continues to ward off a thread from Sega/Take Two's ESPN sports titles, with EA's NBA Live 2005 on PS2 outselling the ESPN NBA 2k5 title by around 33 per cent (although the ESPN title outsold EA's effort on Xbox by a larger margin, but with less overall sales).

The heavy competition from the aggressively priced ESPN range and the strong line-up being presented by its competitors has taken its toll on EA - the giant publisher's share of the industry in October was down from 26.8 per cent last year to 18.9 per cent this year, with only two titles in the top ten (NBA Live 2005 at number two, and Madden NFL 2005 at number nine) and sales down 4.6 per cent in value terms.

Midway's Mortal Kombat Deception performed very strongly last month, charting at number three with the PS2 version and number six with the Xbox version, while Activision also had a good month with Tony Hawk Underground 2 at number five, and X-Men Legends at number ten (both PS2 versions).

Nintendo's latest GameCube title, Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, also performed well, selling just short of 200,000 units to come in at number eight in the chart - an impressive feat for what is, effectively, quite a niche and in-jokey Japanese RPG.

Next month's chart, of course, will show us the first official figures on exactly how well Halo 2's launch actually went, and allow a direct comparison between Halo 2 and Grand Theft Auto San Andreas for the first time. November figures are expected to be released in mid-December.