Call of Duty tops entertainment sales in 2012

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 was the UK's biggest selling entertainment release of last year - beating the top-selling music album, by Emeli Sande, by 1.2 million copies.

Activision's game sold almost 2.7 million copies, and was closely followed in the chart by EA's Fifa 13.

Film titles The Dark Knight Rises and The Twilight Saga took third and fourth spot.

Overall, sales of entertainment products were down 12% year-on-year.

In what has been described by the Entertainment Retail Association (ERA) as a "poor" year across the board, sales of the Top 40 titles were down 25% when compared to last year's big hitters.

Kim Bayley, director of the ERA, blamed the slump on a weak year with few blockbuster hits.

"2012 was a tough year for entertainment due to a number of factors, but this sharp 25% shrinkage in sales of the biggest titles suggests that the quality of releases was at least partly to blame.

"Luckily 2013 has got off to a good start with Skyfall already selling more than two million copies - way ahead of last year's biggest-selling video, The Dark Knight Rises."

Skyfall, the latest James Bond film, is on course to beat Call of Duty's tally within just a couple of months of its release, the ERA said.

Sande's Our Version of Events was the top-selling music title by some considerable distance, aside from two "Now That's What I Call Music" compilations.

Other video games making a strong showing include Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed 3 - which shifted 886,198 copies - and Microsoft's Halo 4, with 753,489.

The chart also showed a strong showing for television series Mrs Brown's Boys.

The chart aggregates sales data from the Official Charts Company and GFK Chart-track to determine the year's standings.

/BBC/