New Super Mario Bros. staves off drive-bys from Liberty City Stories and Cars; World of Warcraft and Half-Life 2: Episode One top PC list.
When Take-Two Interactive announced it was bringing Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories to the PlayStation 2, many were skeptical. After all, the game would be the first title ever to be ported to a console from the PlayStation Portable. Furthermore, its stock plot and reuse of Grand Theft Auto III's setting had been cited as sore points by critics.
Sure enough, reviewers weren't exactly thrilled with the PS2 LCS. But the current GTA drought and the game's $20 price tag overcame the lukewarm press, making the game the second-bestselling title of June 2006, according to sales-volume rankings from NPD Funworld. It was just one of 12 PS2 games in the June top 20 and was joined by its sibling Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, which parked itself in 18th place.
But while Liberty City Stories came close to the top, the number-one slot remained in Nintendo's hands. For the second month in a row, New Super Mario Bros. was the top non-PC game in the land, further demonstrating the success of the Nintendo DS. The portable's popularity was underlined by the fact that the number-three game, Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day, also has not fallen in the rankings since May.
The top Xbox 360 game for June was Hitman: Blood Money, debuting in fifth place. It led the trio of next-gen games on the top 20, which also included Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (16th) and Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter (20th). No original Xbox games cracked the top 20 in June.
Meanwhile, in the PC top 20, another newcomer also nearly took the top slot, with Half-Life 2: Episode One taking the silver. The second-place finish was even more impressive given the fact that the NPD rankings are based only on volume of boxed copies sold at retail and don't count Valve Software's direct online sales of the game via its Steam download service.
However, the top PC prize belonged to Blizzard Entertainment and Vivendi Games' megapopular massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft. A fixture on the chart since its fall 2004 release, it joined a series of returnees in the top 20, such as The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (seventh) and last month's top finisher, Guild Wars Factions. Naturally, the Sims franchise was well represented, taking the third (The Sims 2: Family Fun Stuff), fifth (The Sims 2: Open for Business), and sixth (The Sims 2) slots.
Link for the list
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6154493.html
31-07-2006, 12:58 PM
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