UK Charts: A month at the top for Enter the Matrix
Shiny's Matrix title defies critical panning, shoots past 200,000 sales.
Atari's film tie-in Enter The Matrix is on top of the UK all-formats chart for a fourth week, thanks to strong performance on PS2 and Xbox - but it was a quiet week overall, with total value down some 23 per cent, while units showed a similar drop, down 22 per cent with new releases making little impression.
In fact, you have to look quite hard at the chart this week to see any difference whatsoever from last week's ranking - the top six All Formats is exactly the same as previously, and the tedium is only broken by the arrival of the PS2 version of Return to Castle Wolfenstein at number seven.
Another FPS port is the only other new release in the chart this week, with Red Faction II scraping into the top 40 at number 39 thanks to being belatedly released on PC, GameCube and Xbox. With the PS2 version only just topping the 100,000 mark in the UK recently, demand wasn't expected to be huge, and so it's proven.
One port that has made an impression is Ubi Soft's Splinter Cell, which was released on GameCube and GBA last week, entering the Cube charts at No.3, and No.13 in the GBA chart. It remains No.6 on the All Formats.
Of the other new releases, Nintendo's Donkey Kong Country made No.32 on the Full Price Top 40, and No.3 on the GBA chart, perhaps proving again that gamers are unwilling to part with £30+ for old titles. Talking of old titles, Capcom's Resident Evil 2 and 3 also failed to make the chart - even the notoriously low selling GameCube Top 20.
There's good news and bad news for Konami this week; the good news is that Dancing Stage Megamix has shot up from last week's number 40 to this week's number 13, just ahead of its PSone stablemate Dancing Stage Party Edition. We're a nation of twinkle-toed wonders after all, it would seem - expect Megamix to be a staple of the top twenty for several months to come.
The bad news is that the excellent Silent Hill 3 falls to number 15 from last week's number eight - the game was released here fully four months ahead of its US launch, a factor which may have damaged sales of the title as Europe generally benefits from "spillover" from the US marketing campaign for major games.
Next weeks chart will see the arrival of the first PS2 online titles on the market, namely the budget-priced Twisted Metal Black Online and the rather more than full-priced SOCOM: US Navy SEALs, and Vivendi's movie tie-in The Hulk will also be on shelves come Friday.