UK Charts: Another Christmas No.1 for EA

By Rob Fahey Published 20 December, 2005

Need For Speed races out front.

Need for Speed: Most Wanted has held on to the number one spot in this week's UK charts, holding off a strong performance by Ubisoft's King Kong to take the coveted Christmas No.1 position for Electronic Arts for the third year in a row.

The title follows in the footsteps of last year's Christmas number one, Need for Speed Underground 2, and Medal of Honour: Rising Sun back in 2003 - and means that only Take Two's Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, in 2002, breaks EA's dominance of the Christmas top-spot in the past half-decade.

While EA may be picking up the gold once more, rival Ubisoft also makes a strong showing in the chart, with movie licensed title King Kong seeing a sales boost of 64 per cent - no doubt thanks to good word of mouth and the popularity of the movie - and rising two places to number two.

Activision's Call of Duty 2: Big Red One also does well, holding on at number three in this week's ranking - chart compilers Chart-Track note that the title has been "heavily retailer promoted" - while EA close up the top five with FIFA 06 at number four, down two, and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire holding steady at five.

Also performing strongly this week for Activision was True Crime: New York City, which rose eight places to number nine, while looking at the individual console charts, Call of Duty 2 rose a single place to top the Xbox 360 chart this week for the firm.

Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories was the top-ranked PSP title this week, holding firm at number 12 in the all-formats chart, while Mario Kart DS was the best-selling DS game, down a single place to number 27.

Not a single new release makes it into the chart this week, but Ubisoft's release of the Crazy Frog Racer title - based on the "popular" mobile phone ringtone character (we wish we were joking about that, we really do) - comes in at number 20 in its second week at retail.

Picture of Rob.

About Rob Fahey

Rob Fahey is a former editor of GamesIndustry.biz who spent several years living in Japan and probably still has a mint condition Dreamcast Samba de Amigo set.

Read more articles from Rob by visiting the Rob Fahey archive page.

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