UK Charts: Splinter Cell knocks Bond off the top spot
One super-spy replaces another at the top of the UK sales rankings.
Ubisoft's Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow has gone straight in at number one in the UK charts, making it into the third fastest selling Xbox title of all time - directly behind Halo and the original Splinter Cell title.
The game displaced EA's James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing from the top spot, ending its month-long run at number one - although the title continued to sell well, with a number two ranking this week.
Another Ubisoft title, PC first person shooter Far Cry, was the next highest new entry in the chart, coming in at number four and taking the crown for fastest selling PC DVD title of all time from Unreal Tournament 2004 after only a single week.
The only other new entry in the top ten was Konami's GameCube Metal Gear Solid title, The Twin Snakes, which debuted at number seven with a better first week performance that any format of Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance, although it was still a long way behind the hugely successful Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, shifting only 14 per cent of the week one unit sales of that title.
Outside of the top ten, a number of new titles made it into the ranking, including Sony's This Is Football 2004 at number 14, with the company no doubt hoping for strong word of mouth for the PS2-exclusive title thanks to its groundbreaking online gaming capabilities.
There are yet more new Ubisoft titles in the ranking, with the PS2 version of Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3 driving the title up to number 18, while GameCube exclusive Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life makes it in at number 22.
The final new release in this week's chart is Konami's latest Yu-Gi-Oh! title, with Yu-Gi-Oh! World Championship Tournament 2004 making it in at number 36 in the chart. The other new release of the week, Vivendi's Counter-Strike: Condition Zero, doesn't feature in the full-price chart as it's a budget priced release, but it's at number 19 in the all-formats, all-prices chart.
On the missing in action list this week are THQ's MX Unleashed, which did quite well in the USA but is nowhere to be seen on the UK chart, Atari's Kya: Dark Lineage and Activision's MTX: Mototrax, while Capcom's Steel Battalion - Line of Contact also fails to chart, although that's unsurprising given how few copies of the game were made available.
For the full chart listing, see here.