Round-Up: Canadian Sales Charts, GameTap/Exent, GBA Sudoku

- The September video game sales results for Canada are out, courtesy NPD Canada, and they reveal an extremely hockey-centric market. Hockey games took up five slots out of the top 10: various iterations of EA Sports' Gretzky NHL 2006 for different platforms were #1, #2, and #6, while 2K Sports' NHL 2K6 games were #3 and #4. The rest of the top 10 was dominated by non-hockey sports games: Madden NFL 2006 came in at #5, while Tiger Woods PGA Tour was #7, WWE Day of Reckoning 2 was #8, Mario Baseball was #9, and Burnout Revenge rounded out the list at #10. By comparison, the highest-rated hockey game in the U.S. was Gretzky NHL 2006 on PlayStation 2 at #27. - GameTap, the Turner-owned service that offers games on demand, is using Exent Technologies' EXEtender technology as the basis of its proprietary streaming download system, it has now been announced. The Exent tech is the basis for several other games-on-demand services, including Microsoft's, Yahoo! Games', and Verizon's. "With GameTap, Turner is set to move the gaming market into a new era and we are proud to be the engine driving new, complementary channels for the video game industry," said Exent CEO Zvi Legoren. - Mastiff Games has announced what may be one of the first video Sudoku titles to hit the U.S. The number puzzle has recently swept the UK, and is on the verge of massive popularity in America as well, appearing on an increasing number of newspaper entertainment pages. Mastiff's Sudoku for Game Boy Advance will take advantage of the phenomenon by offering hundreds of puzzles, as well as a hint system and puzzle editor, and will launch in early 2006. "Sudoku fever is sweeping the country and the fiendishly addictive puzzle game play is perfect for Game Boy Advance," said Mastiff Head Woof Bill Swartz. - Also updated today: product news including Trinigy's latest version of its Vision Engine, as well as the latest Gamasutra job postings, including positions from 7 Studios, ATI Research, FASA Studio, Gameloft, Midway Games, Pandemic Studios, and Surreal Software.