This week in Game Sales

This weeks games chart is analyzed and interpreted giving information on the new releases including:
-Age of Conan
-Haze
and -Rock Band


Grand Theft Auto has been sitting confidently and complacently at number one this week. The morally flexible sand box epic has stayed number one since it’s release date 4 weeks ago. The first day GTA IV was out, 3.6 million copies of the game were sold, which gave Rockstar and Take2 $310 million in revenue. The first week of release saw approximately 6 million copies sell which accounts to an astronomical $500 million worth of revenue.


The first of the new entries this week is Age of Conan. This MMO is what everyone is talking about. Initial reviews were unanimous in conclusion praising the game for it’s innovative combat system and over all quality. The quality of the game was instantly anchored when it was reported by Funcom that “the first 20 reviews gave Age of Conan an average score above 90%.” Funcom boasts a massive 400,000 players since it’s release on May 20th 2008. After such a healthy amount of feedback, it is no surprise that Age of Conan has come straight into the charts at number 2, and in any other week where it didn’t have to compete with the likes of GTA IV, it would have certainly come in on top.


The second new entry this week is PS3 exclusive Haze. The game has been met with mixed reviews, however the negative reviews that have been made far outweigh any completely positive review of the game on both grounds of validity and unbiasedness. Blogs were turning up everywhere eviscerating the game for ‘abysmal story telling and voice acting, stupid artificial “intelligence” and an uninspiring and unbalanced, uninspiring and unbalanced multiplayer. However it was undeniable that the game looked pretty, didn’t have a dreary grey and brown filter over it’s lens, an entertaining co-op and decent weapon mechanics, and for that, the game has entered the chart at number 3…well that and the fact that the PS3 library is about as varied in quality as the woman who went on Britain’s got talent and made poems about her hats.

The final new entry that is worth noting is the all format game that any self respecting music lover and consol owner is waiting for, Rock Band. The game has been met with praise on epic proportions. Since it’s virgin showing at E3 2007, the games hype and media attention has grown and grown and was awarded the ‘Best of Show’ at the event. With a plethora of peripherals for the game, the ability to download custom tracks and the fact that owning this game will make you the most popular person amongst your circle of friends, Rock band has debuted in the chart at number 6. The only deterrence to the game is that to buy the instrument bundle, it will cost you £129.99 however this shared amongst, say, 3 of your flat mates soon makes the game a worthy investment.


It should also be noted that due to an impressive misjudgement on Nintendo’s behalf coupled with a slow output of the game and peripheral, Wii fit is nowhere to be seen in this week’s top 40.


Next week sees a rather mediocre army of games being released and are barley worth mentioning. The only game, which jumps out to anyone, will be the console port of Enemy Territory: Quake Wars.
For more information of this weeks Top 40 all formats gaming chart please visit the UK top 40 chart



Sources:
GameSpot
Massively