UK Chart Highlights: Nintendo Hits Top Spot Once More

Nintendo, simply not content to take the majority share of the UK charts lately, has recently been grabbing the accolade of No.1 in various different lists, this time topping the Individual Formats Top 40 again, thanks to Sega's Mario & Sonic game. On the main All Formats Top 40, though, it is EA with Criterion's latest racing title 'Burnout Paradise' that kick-starts 2008 with the largest sales for the fourth week of a year since 'Gran Turismo 2' eight years ago. The first big name new release of the year puts an end to Mario & Sonic's week at the top. Last week saw the SEGA-published Wii game re-enter the Top 40 right at No.1 thanks to a massive re-stock, and despite being pushed down to No.2 this week, the game actually climbs another 7% in sales, showing interest is not about to die down anytime soon. It can only go higher with the impending release of the DS edition as well, and SEGA's target of four million copies sold worldwide should easily be reached, considering the game's success in Japan and the US as well.

Burnout was released on both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, with the results proving to be quite surprising, as the 360 edition took 53% of the total and the PS3 version taking the remaining 47%. The chart movement causes Activision's 'Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare', which is up 5%, to fall one to No.3. Nintendo has yet another bumper sales week, with Wii Play shooting up six places to No.4, Brain Training down just one to No.5 and More Brain Training now at No.10, sliding five. Retailers help 'Ratatouille' get a second wind, rebounding from No.30 to No.9 thanks to special promotions. Elsehwere, Nintendo's Wii Zapper title 'Link's Crossbow Training' has its best week of the year, up from No.22 to No.15 and SEGA's Ghost Squad on Wii moves up three to No.17 thanks to hype surrounding the Zapper.

Out of the entire Top 40, Nintendo takes 17 places with exclusive games, whilst the Top 8 of the Budget Top 40 is astonishingly all Nintendo DS or Wii as well! As for new entries, the ex-GameCube project, Donkey Kong: Jet Race, is new at No.33 and Advance Wars: Dark Conflict fails to chart (along with Wii Chess in its second week...), yet squeezes in at No.37 on the Individual Games Top 40.

Below you can find a taster of the official UK Chart listings from Chart Track UK and ELSPA. In order to see the full Chart Track UK listings, head over to the official website, with is linked to at the bottom of the article:

Finally, finishing off this week with the 'Individual Format Top 40' list ranked by 'Units', as mentioned earlier, Mario & Sonic holds onto No.1 again, out-pacing the individual listings for Burnout on 360 and PS3. Wii Play forces its way up two to No.4, Brain Training is down three to No.5, Link's Crossbow Training hits its peak, up four to No.10 and Ghost Squad nibbles its way up one to No.11 in a week where Nintendo games account for a stupefying twenty-seven out of the forty!

Disclaimer: Remember that the image at the top of this article is not representative of the actual market share and that if the above short versions of the tables do not appeal to you, the full chart listings can be found in their original tabular format by following the link below: