New Super Mario Bros. Tops U.S. Console Charts

According to new data released by the NPD Group, New Super Mario Bros was the best selling console/handheld title in the U.S. during May, with the game now at number one in both America and Japan (it is released in Europe on June 30th). New Super Mario Bros. is one of just two new entries in the top ten, during another slow month for new releases. The other new entry is pseudo movie tie-in X-Men: The Official Game, with the Xbox 360 version at number ten and the PlayStation 2 version at number eleven. The top three games from the previous month all shuffle down one place, with Square Enix’s Kingdom Hearts II (PlayStation 2) at number two, Ubisoft’s Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter (Xbox 360) at number three and 2K Game’s The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (Xbox 360) at number four. Red Octane’s Guitar Hero on the PlayStation 2 is one of the fastest movers of the month, rising from number thirteen to number five, with Electronic Arts’ Fight Night: Round 3 on the Xbox 360 joining it in a jump from number twelve to number six. The rest of the chart sees Sony’s MLB ’06: The Show (PlayStation 2) at number seven, Electronic Arts’ Battlefield 2: Modern Combat (Xbox 360) up two places to number eight and 2K Sports’ Major League Baseball 2K6 (Xbox 360) at number seven. Other movement of note in the top twenty-five includes the PlayStation 2 version of Activision’s Over the Hedge at number twelve, with the GameCube version at number twenty-three. Nintendo’s Brain Age (aka Brain Training), meanwhile, has debuted at number fifteen. Rockstar Games presents Table Tennis still has a chance of being a “sleeper hit” (as predicted by analyst Michael Pachter) at number twenty-five, especially as it was released only at the end of the month. In terms of hardware, the PlayStation 2 still leads the field with approximately 232,000 units sold, with the Xbox 360 still failing to match it at 221,000 – despite dominating the top ten in terms of software sales. Figures are not yet available for the PSP, but the Nintendo DS has once again failed to outsell the Game Boy Advance with 147,000 units versus 158,000 – again despite greater success in the software charts.