Few Surprises in Final Video Game Charts of 2005

There are few surprises in this week’s latest All Formats, Full Price charts from ChartTrack for the week ending 31 December, 2005. Ubisoft’s movie tie-in and great black hope King Kong - top of the tree on Xmas Eve - has been knocked off the number one spot for the close of 2005 by EA’s generic, aggressively-marketed street racer Need For Speed: Most Wanted.

All the big hitters rose up the charts in the run up to Xmas and beyond. Star Wars Battlefront II, Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland, Buzz: The Music Quiz, GTA: Liberty City Stories and (one for Dad) Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06 were all successfully making their way back up the chart in the last major sales weeks of the year.

Its also interesting to compare the UK’s Xmas week chart with the latest All Formats top ten from Japan (for the week starting 12 December, 2005) – provided courtesy of Media Create Ltd.

Notice that eight of the top ten are on Nintendo handhelds – with - predictably - Animal Crossing: Wild World and Mario Kart DS in the top three and SPOnG’s highly anticipated edutainment/intelli-games ‘DS Training For Adults: Work Your Brain’ and ‘Gentle Brain Exercises’ at numbers eight and ten respectively. The difference between the two gaming cultures could not be more clearly defined.

UK Chart Track weekly charts (all formats, full price) for the week ending 31 December 2005:

POS.	TITLE	PUBLISHER	LAST WEEK
1	Need For Speed: Most Wanted	Electronic Arts	2
2	King Kong: Official Game of The Movie	Ubisoft	1
3	FIFA 06	Electronic Arts	3
4	Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones	Ubisoft	10
5	Pro Evolution Soccer 5	Konami	5
6	Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories	Take 2	12
7	The Sims 2	Electronic Arts	17
8	Gun	Activision	9
9	Harry Potter And The Goblet of Fire	Electronic Arts	6
10	WWE Smackdown! Vs Raw 2006	THQ	13
11	True Crime: New York City	Activision	7
12	Buzz! The Music Quiz	Sony Computer Ent.	14
13	Star Wars: Battlefront 2	Lucasarts	16
14	Call of Duty 2: Big Red One	Activision	4
15	Tony Hawk's American Wasteland	Activision	20
16	Football Manager 2006	Sega	-
17	Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06	Electronic Arts	19
18	Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and Wardrobe	Buena Vista Games	8
19	50 Cent: Bulletproof	Vivendi Universal Games	15
20	Call of Duty 2	Activision	18

Latest all formats top ten from Japan (for the week starting 12 December 2005) – provided courtesy of Media Create Ltd.

POS.	FORMAT	TITLE	PUBLISHER
1	PS2	Tales of the Abyss	Namco
2	DS	Animal Crossing: Wild World	Nintendo
3	DS	Mario Kart DS	Nintendo
4	GBA	Final Fantasy IV Advance (incl. version with GBM)	Square Enix
5	DS	Tamagotchi Connection: Corner Shop!	Bandai
6	GBA	Pokemon Mysterious Dungeon: Red Rescue Force	Pokemon
7	DS	Pokemon Mysterious Dungeon: Blue Rescue Force	Pokemon
8	DS	DS Training For Adults: Work Your Brain	Nintendo
9	PS2	Rogue Galaxy	SCE
10	DS	Gentle Brain Exercises

For the complete UK charts, linked to product details and screenshots, head to SPOnG's charts pages