Rule, Britannia: Wii taking names in the UK

by Chris Greenhough { Sep 30th 2008 at 3:29PM }

What ho, chaps! This morning yielded jolly splendid (if totally expected) news for Nintendo from the UK: according to GfK Chart Track figures, the Wii is (to use a British colloquialism) kicking arse in the land of tea and crumpets.

Over the last 12 months, 2.5 million Wii consoles have been sold in Britain, swelling the total installed base to 3.6 million units. That means one in every 16.93 Brits is waggling a Wiimote -- not a bad figure, considering the console launched only twenty-two months ago. Furthermore, high street retailer The Game Group estimates that the Wii will have hit 4.9 million units in Blighty by Christmas. Gosh!/Blimey!/Etc.

To see how the competition fared (spoiler: not very well), hit the break!

UK hardware sales (since September 2007)

Nintendo DS Lite -- 3,300,000
Nintendo Wii -- 2,500,000
PlayStation 3 -- 1,000,000
Xbox 360 -- 1,000,000
PlayStation Portable -- 700,000

UK hardware sales (total installed base)

Nintendo DS Lite -- 7,100,000
Nintendo Wii -- 3,600,000
PlayStation Portable -- 2,900,000
Xbox 360 -- 2,300,000
PlayStation 3 -- 1,400,000

Tags: britain, business, uk

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Mr Khan @ Sep 30th 2008 4:04PM

Good show indeed. Europe's been the hardest market for Nintendo overall in the post SNES era, to see them do so well is a prime indication of their new hegemony in the market

Now if only they had hegemony with 3rd parties, we'd be set.

intro94 @ Oct 4th 2008 1:24AM

i think 3rd parties began to come to their senses this year, capcom is working twice as it did in the gc era, konami is also providing more titles, hell, tecmo is also producing for the wii(while they did just a dozen of games for the n64 and gc combined), and some US companies besides the dreaded ubisoft began to show some decent projects, so im pretty happy with the way the libraries are shaping up.