Verizon announced their top selling games today … I had to keep flipping to the front page of the release to see if the date said June 1, 2005 or October 26, 2004. Aside from the total number of downloads as well as the selection (500 now available), the press releases look similar.

In October 2004, Verizon was announcing more than 100 million downloads. They had 34 million downloads alone in Q1 2005.

Here's the top 5:

1. Tetris by JAMDAT Mobile (also #1 in 10/04)
2. Downtown Texas Hold'em by JAMDAT Mobile (#2 in 10/04)
3. JAMDAT Bowling/JAMDAT Bowling 2 (#6 previously)
4. PAC-MAN by Namco (#3)
5. Ms. PAC-MAN by Namco (#5)

Only Driv3r by Sorrent has been displaced from the top 5 overall even though it remains the top selling action game.

Seeing the same set of top sellers on the list as six months ago despite the introduction of a plethora of new games raises a lot of questions around the need – or lack thereof – for 3D and more sophisticated hand sets to drive this market. For now, consumers seem content with fairly straightforward, easy to play, well known games from online.

Despite the recent interest in movie titles, only Shrek 2 survives among the top five movie games.