FIFA 12 becomes best selling sports game ever

Top football videogame FIFA 12 has become the highest grossing sports title of all time.

The game was already the fastest-selling sports game with sales 23 per cent higher than FIFA 11.

But although the latest game made $186 million (£117 million)  by selling 3.2 million games in its first week of release, chart compilers GFK Chart-Track say it has since gone on to make more money than any other sporting game in history.

Electronic Arts' hit game charted at number one for the fifth consecutive week today. It has been at number one seven times since it was released in the final week of September 2011.

The game is even understood to have made more money than FIFA Road to the World Cup which was at number one for a series record 11 weeks.

Although GFK Chart-Track has not released actual figures, the website VGChartz, which compiles worldwide chart data, reports FIFA 12 selling 5,047,093 copies to date. At the same stage last year, FIFA 11 had sold 4,043,107 copies.

The FIFA series started life in 1993 as FIFA International Soccer and became the first to have an official licence from football's world governing body.

Since then it has become an annual release. Sold in 51 countries and distributed in 18 languages, sales globally top 100 million.

This year, the UK cover features Manchester United's Wayne Rooney for the seventh consecutive time. He is joined by Arsenal's Jack Wilshere who is making his FIFA game box debut.