Call of Duty 4 Wins Activision's First UK Christmas

After a close-fought battle with Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed, Activision has claimed victory on the British all-format sales chart with Call of Duty 4 taking first place. According to research group Chart-Track, the game is Activision's first UK Christmas all-format number one. Call of Duty 4's recent 53 percent rise in sales helped propel it to the top of the charts, pushing it almost 35,000 units ahead of Assassin's Creed, which slips to number two. While Activision sees a holiday triumph, Electronic Arts, which, according to Chart-Track, has taken the Christmas all-format number one every year since Take-Two's Grand Theft Auto: Vice City took the spot in 2002, must settle for the third, fourth and fifth spots with The Simpsons Game, FIFA '08, and Need for Speed: ProStreet respectively. Both of Nintendo's Brain Training titles remain in the all-format Top 10, though the original takes a slide two places to eighth place. The sequel, however, climbs three places to number five. Outside of the top five, sales are in a neck-in-neck race, with only 2,000 units separating number five from number eight. Thanks to a surge in Wii Play sales, a 148 percent boost concurrent with a stellar week for Wii hardware, that title climbs from number 17 to number 10, putting Nintendo on par with EA - as each have three titles in the top 10. THQ's WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2008 gains 36 percent in sales but remains at number seven, while last week's number one, Sega's Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games for Wii takes a tumble to number nine, making it the only top 10 title to take a week-on-week dip.