CoD Can't Be Battered
One week to go until the All Formats Christmas Chart and the top 3 games are all non-movers, with sales of ‘Call of Duty: World at War’ rising by 2%, ‘Mario Kart Wii’ sales up by 1% and ‘FIFA 09’ sales down 1%.
The gap between Call of Duty at No1 and Mario Kart Wii at No2 is 27,000 units, leaving Nintendo with it all to do in the coming week in order to claim what would be the Japanese giant’s first Christmas No1 since N64 ‘Zelda Ocarina of Time’ 10 years ago. If Activision Blizzard can hold on to the No1 spot for another week they will claim the longest uninterrupted All Formats chart topping run-in for a Christmas No1, with 6 consecutive weeks. Sales of the Top 6 games are relatively flat, meaning a 3% rise in sales for ‘Need for Speed: Undercover’ is enough to drive it up one place to No4, while a 3% drop in ‘Brain Training’ sales pushes it down one place to No5. The price-promoted ‘Fallout 3’ is still a Top 10 contender with sales up 6%, rising from No7 to No6. Nintendo still have 4 Top 10 games with ‘Wii Play’ up 16% in sales, up from No9 to No7 and ‘Wii Fit’ (-5%) holding at No8. ‘Guitar Hero: World Tour’ is on song this week, sales up 18%, rising from No10 to No9, while ‘Tomb Raider: Underworld’ almost slips out of the Top 10, down from No6 to No10.
As is normal for this week of the year there are no new entries that make the Top 40, but outside the All Formats Top 10 there are several strong climbers, including the bundled ‘Lego Indiana Jones’ (+31%) up from No13 to No11, ‘Sonic Unleashed’ (+87%) up from No33 to No12, the competitively priced ‘Quantum of Solace’ (+53%) up from No27 to No13 and ‘LittleBigPlanet’ up from No29 to No16 (sales up 58%, handing it No1 in the PS3 Chart ahead of CoD).
