The UK remains one of the Xbox 360's strongest markets.

MCV reports that Xbox 360 hardware sales during Christmas 2008 were up 120 per cent in Europe on the same period in 2007.

VP of Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business in EMEA Chris Lewis told MCV: "Christmas 2008 was the biggest sales period in the history of the Xbox brand. Sales of the console were more than double over the period a year before, in excess of 120 per cent in fact.

"We've had record sales in January too - much better than we anticipated. We're at over eight million console sales to end of 2008."

He added: "... according to data from GfK-ChartTrack, we've widened our lead over PS3 in EMEA to around a million units."

Lewis also noted that the UK remains one of the Xbox 360's strongest markets and that the console has been "consistently ahead" of the PlayStation 3 for a "long and sustained period", something the platform holder says is going to stay that way.

One way of achieving this will be to maintain a strong marketing presence for the Xbox 360, with Lewis noting that Microsoft won't "turn out the lights" on the platform's marketing, but rather "continue to invest in keeping things strong".

The Xbox 360 and PS3 are set to go head-to-head this Friday with the highly anticipated PS3 exclusive Killzone 2 competing with the might of the Halo brand (Halo Wars) for gamers' attention.

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its not suprising really with the price drops it had a huge effect.

i can remeber working in the SIP section security in one of the largest argos distribution sites before xmas.

360`s were really flying out aswell was wii`s and ds`s, it was actually quite good to see so many gaming stuff all stacked up all over the place.

i predict 360 sales will stay as they are unless ps3 reduces price or sony comes in with an entry level machine. either way you look at it sony is beaten on price. they may be 3rd for a very long while yet.