According to some its believed that UK is currently the 2nd largest gaming market, in fact its not.

According to famitsu these are LTD sales for the year for the top 5 selling gaming platforms:

1. Nintendo DS - 1,621,939
2. Playstation portable - 1,177,511
3. Nintendo Wii - 639,788
4. Playstation 3 - 552,601
5. Xbox 360 - 214,221

Total: about 4.2 million

In comparison the first half of the year the UK's gaming hardware sales(according to gfk) have been as follows:

Xbox 360: 600,000
Nintendo DS: 400,000
Playstation 3: 300,000
NIntendo Wii: 300,000
Playstation portable: 100,000

Total: about 1.7 million

In comparison, it is clear Japan is still "by far" the larger gaming market DESPITE being in the biggest recession it has ever been.

Sorry, but using unreliable sources such as famitsu and gfk to prove a point is low..

The only reliable source is VGChartz
http://vgchartz.com/hwtable.php?cons[]=Wii&cons[]=PS3&cons[]=X360&cons[]=PSP&cons[]=DS&reg[]=Japan&reg[]=UK&start=39824&end=39985

Japan Total = 3 537 418
UK total = 2 763 696

Sure, Japan wins, but not by as much as you imply

It is about revenue not just hardware sales. You could have simply looked at the fact that there are 10m PS2s in the UK and about 20m in JP (I don't know UK DS numbers off the top of my head)

Also, don't forget the fact that because of the high euro and low pound many Europeans buy their hardware in the uk. Just cheaper. That increases the numbers or market size for the uk at least a bit, if not a lot.

erm, I don't recall anyone claiming UK was the second largest gaming market.

@haxxiy

The source is one that said UK was already a larger more relavant market than JAPAN same with Soriku

I think he said it's getting there not it's already there.

and if you look at the home console market it's pretty close despite the larger population in Japan.

do we have some Software revenue for both countries (preferably for home consoles only) ?

Well, software sales in Japan have been pretty sad for a long time, maybe the UK are besting them at that?

Don't worry, China will soon be the 2nd largest market, then we can all forget about this discussion.

Be careful, your number are for begin februar to the end of june.

Correct central number, with januar number are

360: 700k

DS+DSI: 600k

PS3: 300k

Wii: 500k

PSP: 100k

Other thing (see central number before), i have already said to you. These numbers (except DS+DSI) have a margin of error +/-100k, which is not nothing. For DS+DSI, it's +/-150k.

For your thread, it change nothing, japan outsell UK for the hardware.