The only new entry in 2009's week six all formats chart (copyright ELSPA and produced by Gfk Chart-Track) is not in any way a hardcore or even medium core game. It is, in fact, as soft as it gets. It's the DS outing,
Mystery Case Files: MillionHeir.
This is the game in which you have to spot differences between pictures, and find items hidden among other items in order to find the whereabouts of a millionaire. Why on earth anybody would want to find a disappeared millionaire in the current financial climate is a mystery in itself unless... unless he ran some dodgy hege fund and now owes real people billions of quid.
We digress. We do this because, frankly, this week's chart is not that interesting.
Wii Fit is still at Number 1 (clocking up eight non-consecutive weeks). So, it seems that people just do not listen to the wise heads at Forbes and Kotaku who advised recently
against buying the game.
Let's get the phrase, "In fact Nintendo dominates the Top 10" out of the way by saying that with five titles, Nintendo dominates the Top 10 this week. Electronic Arts comes second.
As a whole, however, the first-hand software market is still in free-fall. Wii Fit may be the best-seller but it's down 2% in sales. The mighty
Call of Duty: World at War drops 20% of sales to fall below
FIFA '90 by dint of the fact that the latter only fell by 12%.
You see the trend.
So, what of new releases? (
See them all here.) Well, this week we have:
Bionic Commando for PS3 and 360.
F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.
Star Ocean: Second Evolution on PSP.
The House of the Dead: Overkill on Wii to name a few.
Let's hope they can pep things up a little.
The Charts(1) -
1 -
Wii Fit - Nintendo
(3) -
2 -
FIFA '09 - EA
(2) -
3 -
Call of Duty: World at War - ActiBlizz
(NE) -
4 -
Mystery Case Files: MillionHeir - Nintendo
(4) -
5 -
Professor Layton and the Curious Village - Nintendo
(6) -
6 -
Mario Kart Wii - Nintendo
(7) -
7 -
Wii Play - Nintendo
(5) -
8 -
Skate 2 - EA
(RE) -
9 -
Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games - Sega
(RE) -
10 -
Guitar Hero: World Tour - ActiBlizz