‘Resident Evil 5’ blasts to the top of the All Formats Chart, becoming the fastest selling game in the franchise and Capcom’s biggest ever launch.

The game that defined the survival horror genre when released on the original Playstation in 1996 is now more popular than ever, but it is the franchise’s debut on Microsoft’s format, which claims 55% of sales while PS3 accounts for 45%. ‘Resident Evil 5’ is the largest All Formats No1 since Call of Duty: World at War’s second week back in week 47 2008. It manages to surpass FIFA 09’s Christmas No1 week and represents 27.1% of all revenue from console games this week. In fact sales of Resident Evil 5 are slightly more than the combined sales of all the remaining All Formats Top 10 titles. As ‘Resident Evil 4’ had a staggered launch over 2 years across Gamecube, then PS2, then Wii and finally PC, it is hard to compare. However, RE5 on PS3 has outsold RE4’s PS2 launch week by 3.22 to 1. Last week’s No1 ‘Empire: Total War’ drops 7 places to No8 (sales down 70%), but Sega’s other Top 10 title ‘Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games’ benefits from a retailer promotion, jumping 7 places to No10.

All other Top 10 titles lose sales, including ‘Wii Fit’ at No2 and Ubisoft’s ‘Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X.’ at No3, both up 1 place, but sales falling by 14% and 19% respectively. ‘Professor Layton’ makes the most of the downturn in recent releases such as ‘Killzone 2’ and ‘Halo Wars’, jumping 2 places to No4 despite a 20% drop in sales. ‘Killzone 2’ (-53%) slips 3 places to No5, staying ahead of last year’s blockbusters ‘FIFA 09’ (-12%) at No6 and ‘Call of Duty: World at War’ (-12%) at No7. ‘Halo Wars’ suffers a 60% drop in sales, but clings on to the All Formats Top 10 at No9, ahead of the next highest new entry this week, Sony’s PS3 ‘Socom: Confrontation’, new at No11.