It's like even before Will Wright's Spore releases, Electronic Arts keeps shoveling more and more moolah into the vault. Someone definitely did something right by getting IKEA involved in the latest expansion to The Sims 2, because the brand-approved luxuries tucked away inside every twenty buck box managed to overtake every PC retail game offered in the US. The full top ten list follows at the full story.

  

Move over, Azeroth! It was reported last week that Turbine Inc.'s The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar title had been UK's top-seller. What wasn't mentioned - and has just come to light today via an NPD market report - is that LotRO had beaten some rather formidable odds on its way to the top, by way of Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft MMORPG.

Going into details on last week's top five, we find LotRO's standard pack at the top spot, with the game's special edition release taking second place. Third and fourth place are occupied by WoW and its Burning Crusade expansion pack, with the fifth-largest selling PC game being The Sims 2: Seasons expansion pack, released last March.

What isn't clear is if this NPD report is based on numbers from the UK region alone, or if it also includes sales from North America - LotRO was released to both regions on April 24. Whatever the case, it's good to see that LotRO is off to a strong start, while WoW is enjoying strong sales even after being up and running since 2004.