UK Sales Chart, Week Ending February 4th

The increased stock availability of the Xbox 360 console in the UK has proved to have only a fleeting impact on the latest sales charts, with EA’s Need for Speed: Most Wanted returning to the number one spot for the ninth week. The only new entry in the top forty has been the favorably reviewed Rugby Challenge 2006, released to coincide with the start of the real-world Six Nations tournament. Other new releases such as Namco’s Urban Reign (published in the UK by Sony) have failed to make the top forty, despite heavy point-of-sale advertising. Namco’s We Love Katamari (the first of the series to be released in Britain) has also failed to penetrate either the top forty or the PlayStation 2 top twenty, with UK publisher Electronic Arts already being criticised for a lackluster marketing and distribution campaign - with many stores reporting little or no stock of the title on its first day of release. The game’s sluggish start highlights once again not only the notoriously conservative tastes of British gamers, but also the lack of effort made by many publishers in promoting more esoteric titles in the UK.

Leisure software charts compiled by Chart Track, (C)2006 ELSPA (UK) Ltd