22/Mar/2010

· ‘God of War III’ is crowned No1 this week, bestowing Sony with their second game of 2010 to reach the coveted top spot (after ‘Heavy Rain’ reached No1 three weeks ago). In the whole of 2009 Sony only had one week at No1 with ‘Killzone 2’.

Launched exclusively on PS3, ‘God of War III’ outdoes its PS2 predecessor’s launch by 2.65 to 1. Like ‘Final Fantasy XIII’ last week, it is the series’ first true outing on a next-gen format, however it can by no means match Final Fantasy XIII’s spectacular debut which accounted for almost 3 times as many sales (although this was over 5 days and 2 formats while sales for God of War are for Friday and Saturday and PS3-only). ‘Final Fantasy XIII’ sales fall 80% as it slips from No1 to No3, while EA’s ‘Battlefield: Bad Company 2’ holds on to the No2 spot, only 2,000 sales away from No1. Ubisoft’s ‘Just Dance’ is starting to become a familiar sight at the top of the chart, down one place to No4, while THQ record this week’s only other Top 10 new entry with the post-apocalyptic ‘Metro 2033’. The rest of the Top 10 jostles amongst themselves as ‘Wii Fit Plus’ moves down one place to No6 and ‘Heavy Rain’ slides 3 places to No7. Nintendo’s only Top 10 game this week is ‘Wii Sports Resort’, but it does mange to climb one place to No8, boosted by sales from bundled Wii hardware. ‘Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing’ slows two places to No9 and the unthinkable almost happens – ‘Modern Warfare 2’ almost falls out of the Top 10 for the first time, down 4 places to No10 this week. EA’s big newcomers this week both sit on the outskirts of the Top 10 with new expansion ‘Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening’ at No11 and ‘Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight’ at No12. The only other new entry is Capcom’s ‘MotoGP 09/10’ at No21.