UK console sales doubled in 2008

by Alexander Sliwinski on Jan 13th 2009 12:03PM

A report from UK retailer GAME, citing Gfk-ChartTrack data, reveals that console sales doubled on the islands during 2008. Home console sales hit 10 million units last year, up from 4.7 million the prior year. The current next-gen install base is around 22 million units.

Of course, the Wii accounted for nearly half the sales during 2008, with a solid lead at 4.9 million units. The Xbox 360 and PS3 sold 3.2 and 1.9 million units, respectively. Although the Xbox 360 and PS3 should continue growing their install bases in the coming year, a recent report speculates that nearly half of Brits will have a Wii by the end of this year. We'd tell you what that number is, but we (including our very own Brit) always get confused by the differences between Britain, Great Britain, UK and Little Britain.

Source

Tags: britain, chart-track, DS, game, gfk-charttrack, microsoft, nintendo, PS3, sony, uk, Wii, Xbox-360

Reader Comments (51)

United Kingdom of Great Britain...the rest are for short :P (apart from little britain, which is just awful comedy.)
as much as the wii let me down.. it was worth buying one to watch my gran snowboard.

I'm sorry sometstrange, I'm going to have to vote you down. Little Britian USA may be awful comedy, but, its there's a few gems like the sexual inadequacy jokes/skits on the muscle men who go the gym.

id hate for people to think that british comedy was Little Britain. we've done so much better stuff... i just find that show cringeworthy in how poor it is.

Little Britian is funny at times, but it's not the best of British comedy by a long shot. It's average.

Little Britain was much better as a radio comedy than a TV comedy.

I don't think characters who do the same thing in every sketch were designed to be dragged out over about 5 series either.

I believe Great Britain refers to England, Scotland and Wales, whereas the United Kingdom also includes Northern Ireland.

Wait a sec? 3.2 million to 1.9 million? So the xbox 360 basically sold 160% that of the PS3 give or take a few percent?

That's odd. I recall PS3 fans earlier this year touting, 'Sure the Xbox 360 is winning in the US, but in the UK! the PS3 is selling like hotcakes!'.

nap. never have been... and it isnt looking good for the future for them either.

I do love me some hot cakes...

Ummm, no. Not the UK, in the UK the 360 has always done well. You sir have UK mixed up with the EU. In the EU the PS3 has consistantly outsold the 360.

I remember that as well. Guess they were wrong, huh?

Lol, silly individual americans there is such thing as the EU and UK, they are seperate, see, EU is a continent, UK consists of Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales. Within the EU, PS3 is selling well, within the UK, 360 is selling well. Nobody said the PS3 was dominating in the UK ¬_¬ If you can find the person that said this, give me thier address, I'll do you the favour of beating them with a club.

Maverike -
The UK is Scotland, Wales, England and *Northern Ireland*.
The UK is part of the EU.
When people refer to sales I think they really mean the Euro Zone vs the UK (which are mutually exclusive).
The Euro Zone is part of the EU that uses the Euro. The UK still uses Her Majesty's Pound Sterling.

I've never understood the PS3's popularity in the Euro zone.

I guess continental Europeans hate americans, but love the japanese?

"I recall PS3 fans earlier this year touting, 'Sure the Xbox 360 is winning in the US, but in the UK! the PS3 is selling like hotcakes!'."

IIRC they were comparing sales growth rates. Which are not constant. Apparently after first price (and BC) drop, many PS fans finally decided to buy PS3. Now sales are back where they were before.

Looks like the 360 price drop in the later part of 2008 had a significant impact. More than Sony would like to admit of course! ;)

ha ha I bumped up them Wii sales a little. Over Xmas I bought a load for my wifes family and they love playing them, as much as I do I think.

Well done MS and Nintendo.

I'm curious now. How much did you buy?

1...

Wee Britain is my favorite out of the lot. Can't beat that flying Mary Poppins.

"You're gonna get some hop-ons."

At least untill she gets stuck in your planes engine. Boy does that suck!

And this is why Europe is going to ascend to the position of market dominance, eventually

Not as long as Europe keeps getting a$$raped, and enjoying it too.

Europe is way too socialist. Most people here are out of touch with reality of the world.

Europe is heavily dependent on external resources - both natural and human. Populist gov'ts prefer short term politicking to long term (painful) reforms. (Thanks to Thatcher UK is actually OK). Yet, Sooner or later the weakness is going to consume Europe from inside.

What that means is that in short term Europe often looks OK. But in mid/long-term they are always loosing: "one step forward, two steps back" so to say. Thanks to popular protectionism, taxes are going only up and regulations are only added.

I do not expect the Europe as it is now to ever catch up with US, since pressure of taxes is only increasing and buying attitude is only decreasing.

At the moment Europe may look big - but it is only due to weak dollar and lost trust of US bonds. As soon as US economy and policies are back on track, Europe would start loosing again.

I have never seen hotcakes being sold anywhere?

Why do they sell so much?

Because it's so hard to find a place that sells them!

TOUCHE X 2!!!

Because they're sold out when you get there. It's cake. And hot. Of course it would sell well.

A Game clerk was trying to hold us hostage until one of us brought Bioshock. I promised him I'd get round to it, but I felt bad for lying. He was so earnest.

Good to see consoles selling better, especially during this critical year, no doubt it's because of the price drops, the previous years were ridiculous and I knew very few people that had anything other then a Wii.

...the Wii is not going to have sold 30 million consoles by the end of next year in the UK alone. That's obviously a ridiculous number, and a ridiculous speculation.

Why not? Whats stopping people from buying 5 each :D

That was from a survey, and so, obviously flawed. Half of the respondents would have a Wii by the end of 2009, but 30 million in Britain is a little too crazy even for the most starry-eyed Nintendo fanboy's expectations

I mean, that'd be more than GameCube sold period, in one country of one region

Thank you Joystiq for including a screen shot of the only decent thing to come out of the Star Wars Universe in the last 10 years. If you haven't seen it go watch it. Now.

as much as I loved it I can't say I agree with that, the new cartoon is pretty good, KOTOR came out this decade, and Revenge of the Sith was pretty good

Agreed about KOTOR, but I wasn't really including that. I'd rather watch Clone Wars 20x than ROTS once. OK maybe only 10 to 1 but still.

My 5 year old watched the Clone Wars movie and has no interest in the cartoon now. If you can't hook a 5 year old boy with your Star Wars cartoon, you suck. He'd rather watch Avatar and so would I.

yeah the movie was pretty awful, but the cartoon is a lot better surprisingly

There's an episode of the new series where Jar-Jar saves the Obi-Wan and Anakin.

You don't have a leg to stand on.

"where Jar-Jar saves the Obi-Wan and Anakin." In a perfect world George Lucas would have died after ROTJ and he'd be rolling over in his grave right now. In a perfect world.

And Obi-Wan and Anakin are inexplicably trying to save Count Dooku

Good times

Glad to see I'm not the only one that noticed.. Even as Jedi, why on earth would they have saved Dooku, they could have ended the war right there.

But the show has actually been fairly decent, and there's Aayla Secura next week.

because Obi-Wan's a good jedi, and killing, even killing Dooku is bad juju

God damn I loved the Clone Wars cartoon, so awesome. I love my action figures from it even more though

It was ok but the cartoon was fucking butt ugly, now the CG version was much better.

oh man I can't agree more, I dont think i'd have liked it a third as much if it didnt have the style it did

err. disagree more

"The current next-gen install base is around 22 million units."

You mean current-gen. The 360 has been out for over three years and is not next-gen anymore, neither is the Wii or the PS3.

I hate whoever the fuck came up with the term "next gen."

Next gen implies future. We've been in this generation of video game consoles for what, three years? Do we refer to the PS3 and XBOX360 as next-gen when they are followed up upon? What would we call the actual next-gen items? Super-Awesome-Robotic Gaming Devices?

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UK console sales doubled in 2008

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