UK Sales Chart, Week Ending April 23rd

FIFA Street has finally been dislodged from the top of the UK sales charts, after four weeks at the number one spot. In the end, Rockstar’s Midnight Club 3 has been the one to replace it, although it only outsold new entry Lego Star Wars by less than 500 units. The success of Eidos/Giant Interactive's toy/movie tie-in is somewhat unexpected in some quarters, and it's possible that the success of the critically praised title could have a marked effect on how publishers approach licensed children’s titles in the future. Elsewhere in the chart, BioWare's Jade Empire has had an unremarkable opening, entering only at number seven. It has fared far better than Midway’s Unreal Championship 2, though, which could only managed an initial entry at number twenty-five. Analysts have queried the wisdom of releasing two high-profile Xbox titles in the same week, and the performance of both may indeed have been unduly affected. The UK market is a difficult one to predict, though, with the highest ranked new entry outside of the top ten being the relatively low-profile PC strategy game Stronghold 2, which beat not only Unreal Championship 2 but also the much higher profile Yoshi’s Universal Gravitation and Freedom Force vs. The 3rd Reich – both of which failed to chart in the top forty.

Official UK Leisure Software Charts (c) ELSPA compiled by Chart-Track