Vice City rips up the record books

In one of the less surprising pieces of news you'll ever read, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City has become the fastest selling game of all time in the UK, having sold a phenomenal 300,000 units in its first two days on sale, official figures from ELSPA/ChartTrack revealed this morning.

And it could have been even more, according to our sources. The majority of retailers across the country reported being completely sold out by 5pm on Friday, and many are still completely sold out while publisher Rockstar frantically attempts to replenish stocks across the country.

Just one million units of the game were available for the whole of Europe on launch day, and so for the UK to grab over 30 per cent allocation shows just how fervent the demand is on these shores.

To put things in perspective, the next fastest selling games were Metal Gear Solid 2 (120k), WWF SmackDown 2 (120k) and GT3 (120k, including steering wheel bundle), so to say it has ripped up the record book is probably the understatement of the year.

The game was undoubtedly the highest grossing consumer entertainment product of the week, with an estimated £12 million being spent on this single title alone. For a music CD to generate this sum, it would have to sell the equivalent of around a million units - and remember, the figure for Vice City was calculated based only on its sales for Friday and Saturday.

Meanwhile, GTA 3 still sits at No.10 in the All Formats chart, having never been outside the Top 10 since its release over a year ago, and has sold around 1.2 million units in the UK alone, without having been reduced to a budget price.