USA Charts: EA Sports' NCAA Football 2005 tops July ranking

Electronic Arts has maintained its position as the number one publisher in the USA in July, holding on to 26 per cent market share as NCAA Football 2005 sold over half a million units on PS2 to become the top-selling game of the month.

Combined with sales of the Xbox version on the game, which was at number five in the chart, the title sold well over three quarters of a million units, while similar sales figures were racked up by Sega's rival ESPN NFL 2k5 title, which was co-published by Take 2.

Although the PS2 version of the game was comprehensively beaten by NCAA Football, coming in at number two in the chart, the Xbox version was well ahead of EA's title, placing at number four with significantly more sales.

However, Sega and Take 2 have taken the decision to launch the ESPN titles at a budget $20 price point - so while in unit terms, Sega may appear to be neck and neck with EA, in value terms, its title still lags far behind.

EA's market share remains unchanged year on year, but it wasn't so for Activision, which climbed from 4.5 per cent share this time last year to 16 per cent - making it the number two publisher in the USA in July, complementing its number one position in the UK in the same month.

Its position, unsurprisingly, was driven by sales of Spider-Man 2, with the PS2 version of the game in at number three, while the Xbox and Cube versions of the title were at numbers six and seven respectively.

Atari's Driv3r on PS2, and Namco's GameCube-exclusive Tales of Symphonia, took eighth and ninth place in the chart, each with sales of well over 100,000 units - while shoring up the bottom of the chart at number ten was Microsoft's perrenial Xbox favourite, Halo, with sales just shy of the 100,000 mark.