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Quelle surprise – after Ubisoft Montreal’s daring displacement of Nintendo last month, forcing the Japanese giant to settle for a shameful second place, the empire strikes back to reclaim its choke hold over our developer chart.
The chart, which is exclusive to Develop and extrapolated from ChartTrack’s world-renowned sales data, is based on revenues generated during the past month by games sold at UK retail, the third largest software market in the world.
(And if you’re sat there, mouth agape, thinking "Whauurrgh? Surely Rockstar North own that spot!" then you’d be right, but this chart covers the 30th of March to the 26th of April – just a few days shy of Grand Theft Auto IV’s release. But worry not: short of Nintendo quietly releasing new games in the Zelda, Brain Training, Mario and Animal Crossing franchises simultaneously in the dying weeks of May, expect Rockstar North to lead next month by a considerable margin. Spoilers!)
Most notable this month is Japan’s domination over our top five – the first time in, well, a very long time – and that three of the four Japanese developers have Nintendo to thank for their success. A Wii release of Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 just days before the charted period helped Konami capitalise on the competing football and Wii fevers gripping the nation of late, and Sega remains relatively steady, buoyed by the continual cash cascade from Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games – a game exclusive to Nintendo’s platforms.
Outside of the top five, though, there’s a handful of movers and shakers worth mentioning, including two new entries. Monolith joins the chart at a very respectable sixth position with its grisly first-person horror-’em-up Condemned 2: Bloodshot, while Digital Extremes also makes a fresh appearance at tenth place based on the performance of D3-published Dark Sector.
Also making a significant jump – the highest climb of the month, in fact – is the Creative Assembly, whose next-gen action title Viking: The Battle for Asgard has propelled them 22 places into eighth position.
Finally, we’d be remiss if we also didn’t mention Sumo Digital’s 12 place climb on the back of Sega IP love-in Sega Superstars Tennis. Double remiss, in fact, because it’d mean I couldn’t mention how limitless my joy is to finally see Ulala in a new title. Now just bring some swingin’ sixties jazz with you and the world will be ours.
Check out the full chart here.
