Several hours ago, we reported that Electronic Arts had agreed to buy a 19 percent stake in The9 Ltd. for about US$ 200 million. The9 is currently mainland China's exclusive distributor of Blizzard's World of Warcraft MMORPG, with this deal (according to Shanghai Securities News) giving the Shanghai-based company further rights to EA's FIFA Online game.

That is, if this report had been confirmed.

EA spokesman Jeff Brown has just stepped out into the open to announce that contrary to reports from publications like the Shanghai Securities News, EA had not entered into any business dealings of the sort. "There is no signed agreement with The9," Brown said, further commenting that EA did not comment on rumors and speculation like this. Given that this is all EA has to say at the moment, we'll let the readers know in case we run into more clarifications on this whole matter.

So with all the Burning Crusade bashes and launching and hypes all in the past now, World of Warcraft's expansion set runs out of gas. Number one last week, number 5 now; Vivendi SA is a video game developer; formerly known as Vivendi Universal">Vivendi's World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade is now replaced by Capcom's Lost Planet: Extreme Condition (must be an extremely cold condition) at the top spot.

Capcom's Dead Rising held the title for being the game which sat at the top of the charts last year, staying firm at number one for a full week last year. It won't be a surprise if another Capcom game in the form of Lost Planet does so now.

With a 13% drop in unit stocks and 16% drop in per unit value, software sales are suffering as of late. Handhelds are the only ones who have been steadily climbing, in both value and units. So with WoW sitting idly at number five, it watches FIFA 07 nest at the number two spot and Pro Evolution Soccer 6 tails behind at number three. Who's at four? Well, it's none other than Wii Play, which came in all the way from number 11 last week!

 The Burning Crusade has done more than sell like hotcakes, it has elbowed its way across the charts to be the second fastest selling PC game of all time in the UK. What's the first? Championship Manager 4. It's the UK and it's football for heaven's sake.

Last week, TBC took a surprising 30% market share in all PC game sales and sat loftily on the seat as number one on the charts. The rest on the list were pretty much juggled around and the list ended up like this order:

• World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade
• Lost Planet: Extreme Condition
• Wario Ware: Smooth Moves
• FIFA 07
• Pro Evolution Soccer 6
• World Snooker Championship 2007
• Need for Speed: Carbon
• Call of Duty 3
• The Sims 2: Pets
• Canis Canem Edit