UK Sales Chart, Week Ending September 3rd

The launch of the PSP in Europe has resulted in the most successful launch weekend ever recorded in the UK, with approximately 185,000 hardware units being sold in the first three days. This has smashed the previous record held by the Nintendo DS, which sold approximately 87,000 units on its first weekend. With twenty of the PSP’s twenty-four launch titles registering in the top forty, and nine in the top ten, the console’s impact has been enormous. However, with pre-order promotions having been running for most of the year, and many stores devoting more shelf space to preview boxes and displays than to active formats such as the Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS, the PSP’s success is relatively accepted. Also notable is the fact that some of the more critically acclaimed PSP launch titles, such as Ridge Racer, WipEout Pure and Virtua Tennis, rose swiftly to the top of the launch market, perhaps meaning that buyers have been watching the press and choosing their games for some time. Although Ridge Racer was the number one selling title, it had an attach rate of around one to five, with approximately 37,000 unit sales. Sales for the top ten titles were, as a result, much more evenly spread, with other releases in the lower reaches of the chart, such as World Tour Soccer at number eleven, Lumines at number twelve and Everybody’s Golf (aka Hot Shots Golf: Open Tee) at number thirteen, also doing good business. There were few other non-PSP releases this week, and Novalogic’s Delta Force: Black Hawk Down did well to debut at number fifteen on the PlayStation 2 and Xbox, while PC title Dungeon Siege II at thirty-three and peripheral based PS2 golf game Gametrak: Real World Golf at thirty-eight made less of an impact.

Official UK Leisure Software Charts (c) ELSPA compiled by Chart-Track