05/May/2009

Activision Blizzard fail to get their claws into Nintendo as ‘X-Men Origins: Wolverine’ debuts at No2, behind ‘Wii Fit’ which holds on to No1 for a 5th consecutive week.

Sales of ‘Wii Fit’ are only up by 115 units, but it still manages to outsell Wolverine by 1.7 to 1. However, Activision Blizzard do manage to launch ahead of a resurgent ‘FIFA 09’ (+28%), which moves up one place to No3. Activision’s film tie-in also sits at the top of the Xbox 360 and PS3 charts with 51% of sales on Xbox 360 and 39% on PS3 (the rest on PS2, PSP, Wii, DS and PC). Nintendo’s ‘Wii Play’ (+47%) and ‘Mario Kart Wii’ (+15%) both enjoy upturns in sales alongside an increase in sales of the Wii console. ‘Wii Play’ moves from No8 to No4, while ‘Mario Kart Wii’ is bumped up one place to No6. ‘Resident Evil 5’ (-2%) is proving to have a strong survival instinct, holding its own in the All Formats Top 10 for an 8th week while sticking at No5 for a 3rd consecutive week.

Recent titles from Atari and EA both drop to the bottom half of the All Formats Top 10 with ‘The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena’ (-31%) slipping from No2 to No7 and EA’s ‘The Godfather II’ (-22%) sliding from No3 to No8. Sales of ‘Professor Layton’ are static, but it still finds itself dropping 3 places to No9, while ‘Call of Duty: World at War’ (+5%) is still fighting in the All Formats front line at No10, having never fallen out of the Top 10 since it was launched 25 weeks ago. There are jumps up the chart for ‘Street Fighter IV’ (+97%), up from No25 to No11 and ‘Halo Wars’ (+75%), a re-entry at No25 – both boosted by retailer promotions. The only other new All Formats Top 40 title other than ‘Wolverine’ this week comes from Sony – ‘Singstar Pop Edition’ on PS3 at No32.