Also Germany bans loads of games which I think must put people off

That's a pretty recent affair, isn't it? Because of the fall of the pound. It's not the standard motion.

Hmm, that true, but even when pound was around 1.3€ people still imported (at least in my country), since they drop prices really fast, while here, pretty much all PS3 games are still at full price (exceptions are platinums).

As some people already stated, many people import UK-games due to the low pound. Being from Germany, out of my 24 wii-games I imported 11 from the UK and 1 from the Netherlands (uncensored RE4). So that must somehow give that 60 million population a boost software wise.

As stated before as well, most of my friends play games on their pc, but probably just 1/3 own a console.

Just to make it clear for the Americans again: Give me a six-hour-drive by car and I'll be able to go to one or more then over ten different countries. This doesn't apply to UK-citizens so their market is somehow more closed as well. No people buying games from somewhere else, but many from somewhere else buying from the UK.

This is an interesting statement.  I know many people in Germany speak English as a second language, but I'm surprised to hear that those who speak German as a primary language would purchase the English version of a console game instead of the German version to save money.  Or were those titles not available in German?

France is also a PC dominated market.

I study English literature and linguistics at university, so it's not a big thing for me. I don't care if the game is in english or german.

But there are more things to be taken into consideration. All the wii games in Europe are assembled in Germany (even Madworld was, which isn't even out in Germany). So most of the versions even have german language or subtitles in it. @all the Uk-Wii-gamers: would you mind to look at your games to prove my point?

Apart from Madworld and the RE4 uncut-version all the games were available (well some of them dubbed down), but, it wasn't a big thing, because I don't care if I see blood when I shoot someone in a game or need to see Nazi-symbols.

I just import because of the price, which is easily half than the price in Germany.

I believe you when you say that most of the Wii titles have German language or subtitles in them... I just wasn't aware of it.  And I can understand the rationale of buying a title for half the cost if language simply isn't a barrier.

I wonder what the actual percent split is between titles purchased within the UK, and titles purchased from the UK.

2008 Software Unit Sales:

Germany:

Console: 36.503m (62%)
PC: 22.521m (38%)

France:

Console: 34.971m (81%)
PC: 8.144m (19%)

I thought it was Europe that was supposed to be bigger than Japan not JUST the UK. Cause the UK doesn't strike me as being really that big. Then again maybe I have no idea how big the UK is.