Strategy still strong

Here's the 20 best selling games for the week ending June 4.

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

The most surprising thing is that three MMOs rule the list. Anyone who says that a game has to have single player to be successful are clearly behind the curve. And it's nice to see Guild Wars on top for a change.

What surprised me was the continuing strength of sims and strategy games. Three Sims titles, Rome, Sim City 4, Stronghold 2, Roller Coaster Tycoon 3, Zoo Tycoon 2, the Warcraft III set and, shockingly, Empire Earth 2. Ten of the twenty - half - are strategy or strategy lite games. None of them are available on a console.

A more worrying note: Excepting Guild Wars, all the titles on the list are sequels, remakes, franchise knockoffs or games using licensed properties. This is not that different from any console list, which will usually have a good proportion of sequels or franchise titles, but it is certainly harder to point to AAA PC games with no progenitor than it is to point to God of War, Mercenaries or Katmari Damacy - all of which will likely become franchises.

So, everything old is new again.