UK Charts: FIFA 06 on top
Far Cry Instincts at three.
No surprises at the top of the chart this week, as FIFA 06 steamrollered the opposition and made it to the top of the All Formats Top 40, topping all the home console charts in the process and making reasonable inroads into the PC and handheld spaces - with the PSP version still in the offing, due to hit on October 21st.
FIFA's characteristic surge to the top also saw the PS2 version make its name as the fastest-selling football game in UK chart history and the fifth fastest-selling game ever in the UK - a tough act for genre rival Pro Evolution Soccer 5 to follow when it lines up later this month on PS2, Xbox and PC.
EA also topped the scrap for the leftovers, as the recently-released PS2 and Xbox racer Burnout Revenge clung on to number two, despite a strong performance from Ubisoft's Xbox-exclusive first-person shooter Far Cry Instincts, which arrived at number three and stole second place in the Xbox Top 10.
The UK contingent at Eidos also dug into the All-Formats as the Christmas release season got firmly underway last week, as Conflict: Global Storm debuted at number five (three on PS2, four on Xbox), while Codemasters maintained its presence in the top ten with one of this summer's success stories, Brian Lara International Cricket, firmly not-out at number nine.
The PC also enjoyed a strong showing in the All-Formats Top 40, with SEGA and Creative Assembly's latest title, an expansion pack for Rome: Total War called Barbarian Invasion, making its mark at number four in the process of topping the PC's own chart, while The Sims 2 expansion Nightlife hung onto the number six place in the All-Formats, and another PC strategy game expansion, THQ and Relic Entertainment's Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Winter Assault, stuck around at number eight in the All-Formats.
Atari's critical darling Fahrenheit - one of the most celebrated new games of recent weeks - refused to thaw at number 11, just above Nintendo's first big DS release of the autumn months Advance Wars: Dual Strike. DS titles are poorly represented in the chart at the moment, with the second-best-selling DS exclusive, Konami's Castlevania - Dawn of Sorrow, failing to make the All-Formats Top 40 at all.
In the meantime, the chart is distinctly PSP-flavoured by comparison. Burnout Legends hangs on as the top-rated handheld exclusive at number seven (down from five last week). Including Legends there are five PSP exclusives in the Top 40 and three titles that owe at least some of their stature to newly-launched PSP ports.
Nintendo won't be worrying too much, however, with Japanese and American success story Nintendogs due to make an impact across Europe this Friday, October 7th.