Nintendo Dominates UK Sales Charts

Nintendo has seen its best performance in the UK sales chart in modern times this week, with four out of the top six titles all being Nintendo published games. The company’s lead title has been Pokemon Ranger, which has moved up one space from its debut last week to claim the top spot. Pokemon Ranger represents Nintendo’s first number one in the UK, traditionally always a weak market for the company, since Pokemon Ruby in 2003. Pokemon Ranger becomes the sixth Pokemon title to reach the UK number one spot in the past ten years and the first on the Nintendo DS. At number three, Wii Play has once again surged up the chart following increased stock availability this week - of both the title itself and the Wii console. The only new entry in the top ten is perhaps the most surprising success of the week, with Rising Star/Marvelous’ Harvest Moon DS entering straight in at number four. Despite the Harvest Moon games never having proven popular in the UK before, and the DS version garnering some of the mildest critical acclaim for any of the games in the series, strong point of sales advertising has seen the game perform unexpectedly well – after failing to enter the top forty on its debut last week. Altogether there are seven Nintendo DS exclusive games in the top forty, including re-entries 42 All-Time Classics (aka Clubhouse Games) at number twenty-one and Cooking Mama at number thirty-five. They are joined by new entry Hotel Dusk: Room 215 at number twenty-two, which also failed to chart in its first week. The highest new entry of the week though is F.E.A.R. at number seventeen, with the PlayStation 3 version accounting for 80 percent of sales, compared to 11 percent for the Xbox 360 and 9 percent for the PC.

Leisure software charts compiled by Chart Track, (C)2007. ELSPA Ltd