Skyrim is UK Christmas 2011 number one

Gargantuan fantasy role-playing game Skyrim is the UK’s Christmas 2011 number one.

While sales dropped eight per cent on last week, Skyrim held on to top spot, breaking EA and Activision’s eight year dominance over the top of the Christmas chart.

EA’s Medal of Honor: Rising Sun kicked off the EA/Activision monopoly in 2003. The last non-EA/Activision game to hit the Christmas number one height was 2002’s Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.

Back in the here and now, UKIE, which distributes the chart compiled by GfK Chart-Track, noted that despite Christmas being a week away, the Christmas chart has always been the last published chart before Christmas, and given this year it falls on a Sunday, we’re getting the result now.

Skyrim sold almost 15,000 units more than number two game Just Dance 3, sales of which rose 11 per cent. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, in third, rose two per cent. Just Dance 3 is Ubisoft’s highest Christmas chart position since the first Assassins’ Creed game hit number two in 2007.

FIFA 12 is in fourth place in the Christmas chart, despite a 13 per cent rise in sales. FIFA was second in 2010 and 2009, and first in 2008.

THQ’s Saints Row 3, buoyed by strong price promotions and a Gamestation telly advert, rose three places to number eight off the back of an 85 per cent jump in sales. Battlefield 3 stays at six despite a 55 per cent rise in sales and the launch of the Back to Karkand DLC.

Assassin’s Creed: Revelations is down two places to number seven, but sales of the stab ’em up rose 21 per cent. Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games (+31 per cent) is number eight. EA’s Need for Speed: The Run climbed four places to number nine, with a corresponding 51 per cent rise in sales. And Professor Layton and the Spectre’s Call (-8 per cent) slipped three places to tenth.