The official UK charts contained a pleasant surprise this week; a top ten that’s dominated by Nintendo games. Only three companies - Activision, EA and 505 games - managed to get a look-in, a minor blip on an otherwise astonishing summer sales period for Nintendo.

The chart in full, courtesy of ChartTrack:

1. Transformers: The Game (Activision)
2. Pokemon Diamond (Nintendo)
3. Wii Play (Nintendo)
4. More Brain Training from Dr Kawashima (Nintendo)
5. Mario Party 8 (Nintendo)
6. Harry Potter & The Order of the Phoenix (Electronic Arts)
7. Pokemon Pearl (Nintendo)
8. Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training (Nintendo)
9. Cooking Mama (505 Games)
10. New Super Mario Bros. (Nintendo)

Amongst the ten, the highest climber in the chart this week is Mario Party 8, up four places to reach number five. Meanwhile, the frankly awesome Pokemon Diamond/Pearl continues to be denied the top spot because of a licensed game with a blockbuster movie and heavy TV promotion behind it. More worryingly, sales of the two titles have dropped 40% this week, ending up at numbers two and seven, respectively.

All the same, it’s not often that we see such healthy sales in the summer period. We reckon that Nintendo’s success is as much to do with the quality of their titles as it is with the fact that neither of their rivals are offering anything worth a damn right now.

Plus, there’s the small matter of the lousy weather we’ve been having. Rather than kick a football around in the rain, gamers are more inclined to stay indoors and bask in the glow of their TV screens.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 14th, 2007 at 7:52 pm by Bulent Yusuf
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