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Tomb Raider Tops UK Sales Chart For Second Week, Despite Three New Releases

Crystal Dynamic's Tomb Raider marked its second week in a row as the best-selling video game in the United Kingdom for the week ending March 16th, despite dropping 72 percent in week-over-week sales and having to fend off the release of three high-profile titles; Sony's God of War: Ascension, Activision Blizzard's Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm, and City Interactive's Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2 (which landed in second, third and fourth place respectively).

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Crystal Dynamic’s Tomb Raider marked its second week in a row as the best-selling video game in the United Kingdom for the week ending March 16th, despite dropping 72 percent in week-over-week sales and having to fend off the release of three high-profile titles; Sony’s God of War: Ascension, Activision Blizzard’s Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm, and City Interactive’s Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2 (which landed in second, third and fourth place respectively).

Square Enix has not provided an updated sales count for Tomb Raider, however, the publisher confirmed that over one million people had played the game within the first 48 hours after it launched. This second week in a row best-seller status in the UK seems to indicate that Lara’s rebooted adventure is an official success.

On the non-Tomb Raider front, the second place debut of God of War: Ascension (which came in second on both the all-formats and single platform charts) is particularly troubling for Sony, as the title sold less than half the number of copies that God of War III pulled in during its debut week in 2010. On the plus side, Ascension did manage to outsell both God of War and God of War II.

Despite Electronic Arts’ press release tooting their own DRM-filled horn, Maxis’ always-connected (never officially offline) SimCity fell from its second place debut in the prior week to fifth place on the charts. Further down the UK all-formats chart, Crysis 3 marked its fourth week in the top ten in eighth place, while Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance fell from ninth to nineteenth.

UKIE GfK Chart-Track All Formats Top 10 for the week ending March 16, 2013 reads as follows:

  1. Tomb Raider (Square Enix)
  2. God of War: Ascension (Sony)
  3. Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm (Activision Blizzard)
  4. Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2 (City Interactive)
  5. SimCity (EA)
  6. FIFA 13 (EA)
  7. Far Cry 3 (Ubisoft)
  8. Crysis 3 (EA)
  9. Call of Duty: Black Ops II (Activision Blizzard)
  10. The Sims 3: University Life (EA)
  11. Assassin’s Creed III (Ubisoft)
  12. Hitman Absolution (Square Enix)
  13. Skylanders Giants (Activision)
  14. Need for Speed: Most Wanted (EA)