Resident Evil 5 is More Popular Than The Beatles

Capcom is crowing about the success of Resident Evil 5, which in its first weekend of release managed to surpass both movies and music in total sales.

The long-awaited zombie thriller outsold every track on the U.K. Top 200 Singles Chart including both physical and digital formats, bested the sales of the new U2 album No Line On the Horizon (which came out on February 27) in a single weekend and grossed more than the top five movies in the U.K. combined. Resident Evil 5 has shipped four million copies worldwide since it was released on March 13.

"This is proof if any were needed that games are the entertainment medium of choice in 2009," said Capcom's Leo Tan. "Thanks to its strong storyline, amazing graphics and compelling co-op play, Resident Evil 5 provides hundreds of hours of entertainment at a relatively low cost - and it's this value for money that consumers are increasingly responding to."

Comments in the Music Ally blog point out that the relative popularity of Resident Evil 5, and videogames as a whole, is driven largely by declining music sales spurred on by the ease of music piracy. It's a valid point, but once again it's impossible to deny that videogaming is becoming an increasingly mainstream pastime, and that as discretionary entertainment budgets shrink, people are more inclined to maximize the bang for their buck. In many cases, that's games.