Xbox 360 vs. PlayStation 3 in European GTA IV Showdown

In the United Kingdom, the second week of GTA IV sales seems to help reinforce Microsoft's line of speech. As the fourth game in the GTA series broke past the barrier of one million units sold, the format gap widened in the favor of Microsoft. Some 62% of all copies of GTA IV sold were for the Microsoft built Xbox 360, while previously only 55% of the game headed to the same platform. It's not quite 2 to 1 as Microsoft hopes, but it's slowly going that way. Unfortunately, the pace of the sales in England seems to be going down a bit. Absolutely all platform sales of GTA IV dropped by around 70% in the second week of sales so, overall, the PlayStation 3 is not very far behind in number of total copies sold.

In the UK games chart, second place goes to the Wii Fit fitness game, while Wii Play takes third place. Another game aimed at Nintendo users, Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games for Wii and the DS, sits at number four, while Iron Man, despite rather poor reviews, takes number five, on the strength of it being able to reach to a variety of platforms (PC, Xbox 360, PS3, PS2, PSP, Wii and DS for those who like to keep track).

The GTA story is quite a bit different when we move to other European states. In both Germany and Spain, the Xbox 360 version of Grand Theft Auto lags behind the PlayStation 3 version. In Germany the PS3 game takes first place, with its rival in second place and the ubiquitous Wii Fit in third. In Spain, it's even worse for Microsoft, as the PS3 version sits at the top while the Xbox variant is only on the third spot, behind the Wii Fit. Shame on you, Grand Theft Auto IV version for the Microsoft Xbox 360, to be beaten in the charts by a fitness game designed for the "casual" Nintendo Wii!

Looking at the chart positions, it's pretty clear that no winner has yet to emerge in the so-called "console wars", even if both Microsoft and Sony are trying to spin the numbers both ways. It seems that the Xbox GTA IV is doing better than the PS3 GTA, but the margin is not big enough for Microsoft to draw any conclusion from this and, more importantly, it seems like the PS3 might again outsell the Xbox 360 for the month of April, in NPD numbers, which is not good news for Microsoft.

Expect more number crunching and number spinning in the coming days and weeks.

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