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Q3's top five best-sellers revealed

Madden, Wii Fit and Star Wars win out.

Dark blue icons of video game controllers on a light blue background
Image credit: Eurogamer

Electronic Arts notched up the world's biggest selling game from July to September with Madden NFL 09 shifting 2.994 million units, according to a new report combining US, UK and Japanese sales data.

The report from stat fiends NPD, Gfk and Enterbrain revealed that Wii Fit sold 2.089 million copies, followed by Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (1.738 million), Pokemon Platinum (1.482 million) and the evergreen Mario Kart Wii (1.468 million).

In the UK alone Wii Fit managed an incredible 462,000 units over the summer, followed by Mario Kart Wii (394,000) and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (321,000).

Unsurprisingly, just 36,000 copies of Madden NFL 09 were sold outside of the US - underlining just how little anyone outside of North America cares about American Football. Pokemon Platinum, meanwhile, is currently only available in Japan.

Overall, the UK boasted the largest aggregate growth of the three territories at 15 per cent, followed by the United States at eight per cent. In the UK, console software grew 26 per cent, but handheld software declined by one per cent. The United States managed console software growth of six per cent and portable software growth of 10 per cent.

"Taking into consideration the marked differences between the three territories, the UK market in particular is gearing up for a best-ever Q4 performance overall, even under the well-documented financial climate," said Dorian Bloch, Business Group Director, GfK Chart-Track Limited.

"We fully expect UK consumers to drive sales for the full year to unprecedented heights, especially considering the line-up of exciting single and multi-format new franchises currently hitting the market, not to mention the evergreen portfolio of Nintendo-published Wii and DS titles which have done such a great job of expanding the market to a far more mainstream consumer," he added.

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