The news is up. The charts should come soon enough.
22/Dec/2008
EA win it in injury time as ‘FIFA 09’ tops a hugely successful year by scoring the Christmas No1 ahead of Activision Blizzard’s ‘Call of Duty: World at War’ which drops to No2 and Nintendo’s ‘Mario Kart Wii’ which falls from No2 to No3.
It is EA’s 6th All Formats Christmas No1 in the past 8 years. A perfectly timed retailer promotion saw sales of ‘FIFA 09’ soar past its rivals, up 89% on last week, while Call of Duty could only manage a 13% rise and sales of Mario Kart Wii jumped 40% bringing it within 3,000 sales of Call of Duty. EA’s ‘Need for Speed: Undercover’ makes sure of holding on to the No4 position as retailer discounting helps sales climb 27%, while Nintendo’s Brain Training is the only All Formats Top 10 title to drop sales, a non-mover at No5 with sales down 1%. Nintendo can celebrate a successful Christmas period however, with half the All Formats Top 10 made up of Nintendo published games. Nintendo’s games have enjoyed a strong presence in the All Formats Top 10 throughout the year and this week is no exception. Mario Kart Wii has been out for 37 weeks with only 4 of those weeks spent outside the Top 10.
‘Wii Play’ moves up one place to No6 and ‘Wii Fit’ drops 2 places to No10, but it is ‘Professor Layton and the Curious Village’ which exceeds all expectations, re-entering the Top 40 at No8, proving to be a popular Christmas stocking filler, no doubt helped by strong demand and renewed stock. Activision Blizzard’s price promotion appears to have centred more around ‘Quantum of Solace’ than ‘Call of Duty’ as the Bond film tie-in is back in the Top 10, up from No13 to No7. ‘Tomb Raider: Underworld’ gets a well needed Christmas sales boost this week, up from No10 to No9 with sales climbing by 22%.
