1) Guild Wars - NCsoft
2) World Of Warcraft - Vivendi Universal
3) Star Wars Galaxies: The Total Experience - LucasArts
4) The Sims 2 - Electronic Arts
5) The Sims 2 University Expansion Pack - Electronic Arts
6) Half-Life 2 - Vivendi Universal
7) Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords - LucasArts
8) Empire Earth 2 - Vivendi Universal
9) Lego Star Wars - Eidos
10) Stronghold 2 - 2K Games
11) Zoo Tycoon 2 - Microsoft
12) Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 - Atari
13) Sid Meier's Pirates - Atari
14) Rome: Total War - Activision
15) Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004: Century Of Flight - Microsoft
16) The Sims Deluxe - Electronic Arts
17) Warcraft III Battle Chest - Vivendi Universal
18) Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic - LucasArts
19) Doom 3 - Activision
20) Sim City 4 Deluxe - Electronic Arts

World of Warcraft sold ~5,000 less copies.

1) Guild Wars - NCsoft
2) World Of Warcraft - Vivendi Universal
3) Empire Earth 2 - Vivendi Universal
4) The Sims 2 - Electronic Arts
5) The Sims 2 University Expansion Pack - Electronic Arts
6) Half-Life 2 - Vivendi Universal
7) Stronghold 2 - 2K Games
8) Guild Wars Collector's Edition - NCsoft
9) Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords - LucasArts
10) Dungeon Lords - DreamCatcher Interactive
11) Lego Star Wars - Eidos
12) Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 - Atari
13) Doom 3 - Activision
14) Rome: Total War - Activision
15) Warcraft III Battle Chest - Vivendi Universal
16) Sid Meier's Pirates! - Atari
17) The Sims Deluxe - Electronic Arts
18) Brothers In Arms: Road To Hill 30 - Ubisoft
19) Zoo Tycoon 2 - Microsoft
20) Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004: Century Of Flight - Microsoft

Guild Wars outsold World of Warcraft by a factor of 2.5.

EverQuest: Depths of Darkhollow will have players adventuring in raw, bleak caverns and facing the most formidable monsters yet. Featuring new lands with beautiful graphics, a bold new storyline, and fierce new creatures including Sporali, Clockwork Gnomes and the frightening Werewolves, EverQuest: Depths of Darkhollow is the next great expansion pack for the fantasy adventure that is EverQuest. For the first time ever, players will have the ability to play as a monster and experience EverQuest lore first hand through the eyes of another character while they do battle against their ancient foes. Players will also utilize Spirit Shrouds to don the form of a lower level creature to join newbie friends in battle. EverQuest: Depths of Darkhollow is bursting with new adventures and features for players of all levels.

WORLD OF WARCRAFT® ACHIEVES NEW MILESTONE WITH TWO MILLION PAYING SUBSCRIBERS WORLDWIDE

IRVINE, California – June 14, 2005
Blizzard Entertainment® today announced that World of Warcraft®, the company’s highly acclaimed subscription-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), has surpassed two million paying subscribers worldwide*. As the game’s worldwide population continues to grow, so does the game itself: Blizzard recently introduced the highly anticipated player-vs.-player (PvP) Honor System and the game’s first two Battlegrounds, Alterac Valley and Warsong Gulch. These new PvP battlefields offer a variety of fast-paced combat and some of the most valuable rewards yet seen in the game.

“World of Warcraft continues to surpass all expectations as gamers around the world embrace it with overwhelming support,” said Mike Morhaime, president and co-founder of Blizzard Entertainment. “We want to thank our players for their incredible response, and we promise to continue supporting World of Warcraft with more updates and content. The new Battlegrounds are just the beginning of greater enhancements to come.”

World of Warcraft recently surpassed the two million mark for paying subscribers. Already the largest MMO in North America, Australia, New Zealand, and Europe, Blizzard expects to see even greater growth with the recent commercial launch in China on June 7, 2005. Anticipation for World of Warcraft was already at an all-time high in China, with peak concurrency during the open beta test topping 500,000 players, nearly equal to World of Warcraft’s peak concurrency in all three current markets combined. Blizzard expects to see the new mark of two million subscribers shattered quickly with the arrival of players from China in the coming weeks.

Later in the year, World of Warcraft will also launch in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau.

Even as World of Warcraft debuts in new markets, Blizzard continues to develop new content to keep the game relevant and exciting for current and incoming players. The recent deployment of Battlegrounds illustrates Blizzard’s commitment to enhancing the World of Warcraft experience for all its players worldwide. Additional Battlegrounds and more content updates are scheduled throughout the year and beyond.

About Blizzard Entertainment
Best known for blockbuster hits including the Warcraft® series, StarCraft®, and the Diablo® series, Blizzard Entertainment® (www.blizzard.com), a division of Vivendi Universal Games, is a premier developer and publisher of entertainment software renowned for creating many of the industry’s most critically acclaimed games. Blizzard’s track record includes nine #1-selling games and multiple Game of the Year awards. The company’s free Internet gaming service, Battle.net®, reigns as the largest in the world, with millions of active users.

*Based on internal company records and reports from key partners and retailers worldwide.

In an interview published in the latest issue of Famitsu magazine, Final Fantasy XI producer Hiromichi Tanaka disclosed that his development team is currently working on a new massively multiplayer role-playing game for next-generation consoles.

Tanaka declined to comment on whether the MMORPG in development will be a successor to FFXI or a new product. He did confirm that the technical demonstration shown for the Xbox 360 during E3 was one of the experiments his development team had created to see what kind of graphics a next-generation console could achieve.

Tanaka also disclosed that the Xbox 360 edition of FFXI will sport graphics of a quality similar to the currently available PC version of FFXI. However, he added that the development team is seeing if the Xbox 360 can display graphics for about twice the distance than the Windows version.

The game's beta test is slated to begin simultaneously with the launch of the Xbox 360 later this year. Similarly to the Windows beta, the Xbox 360's beta test will be conducted on servers separate from the rest of the FFXI world. One of the main objectives for the Xbox 360 version's beta testing is to see if there are any problems with the game's network environment, since this will be the first time Xbox Live will be allowing a connection from an external system.

On the massively multiplayer side of things, FFXI producer Hiromichi Tanaka was equally evasive - admitting that his team is working on a new MMORPG for next-generation platforms, but declining to give any further details. He did, however, admit that the tech demo shown off at Microsoft's pre-E3 conference was one of the team's experiments with next-gen graphics, which tends to suggest that Xbox 360 is seen as a target platform for the game.

One might reasonably expect PlayStation 3 to be the other target platform, but Tanaka seems perturbed by rumblings from Sony which suggest that the hard drive may not be included as standard with the console.

He told Famitsu that he was surprised to hear that Sony is considering shipping without a hard drive, saying that unless broadband connections are suddenly upgraded to fibre optic speeds, the PS3 will need a hard drive in order to support the kind of character development required by massively multiplayer games.

According to Tanaka-san, there will be new spells, new jobs, and a whole bunch of other additional content in the game, as well as double the draw distance of the current PC version. A beta test is said to be starting soon too, though how exactly this is going to work without lots of Xbox 360s is as yet undisclosed.

Hiromichi-san claimed that the 360 version will offer a draw-distance twice that of the PC version, and will feature an assortment of new content such as jobs and the possibility of new Summon magic spells.