UK Charts: Spider-man 2 Sticks at Top, Electronic Arts is Dominant

The traditional Summer gaming famine continues to take its toll this week, with not a single new entry into the ChartTrack/ELSPA All Formats Top 40. Activision's Spider-man 2 holds steady at the top spot, bolstered by the movie's continued success in UK cinemas. Spider-man 2's ongoing success is demonstrated by the title shifting more units than Driv3r, Shrek 2 and Athens 2004 combined. These titles also remain in the same position as last week.

Thanks to the paucity of new releases, similar stagnation is evident across the whole top 40. Only EA, with it's perfectly timed budget blanket bombing, has produced any form of movement. The only noticable movement in the top 10 is thanks to Need For Speed:Underground, up a nudge from seven to five, FIFA 2004 also up two to eight. ChartTrack reports Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2004 - up five places from 15 - as being this week's best performer, with sales up an impressive 38%.

Cast your eyes across the other charts, and EA's genius is in further evidence. Seven out of the top 10 PS2 budget titles come courtesy of EA, the same being true of the Xbox budget charts. The PC Top 40 budget chart is utterly dominated by titles from the US giant, with massive 22 out of 40 titles being EA Classics or third-party EA value releases by labels Sold Out or Dice. It seems EA have found the perfect remedy to the dreaded summer sales dip.

MIA, somewhat unsurprisingly, is Take 2's resurrection of the Army Men brand through its GlobalStar subsidiary. Sarge's War failed to muster sufficient sales to place on any of the charts.

Hopefully next week will see a break from the dearth of new releases, with SCEE's F1 04, Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow for GameCube, and Midway's The Suffering jumps out and shouts "Boo!" to PC gamers.