People in Europe (except UK) just don't like Microsoft products. We have Windows because there's no choice. We all had Windows at school, work, home because the Mac was only for freaks. But outside of that, you really can see that we avoid Microsoft products. Being such a strong brand with so much money of course they still sell a ton of products over here but if you put it into perspective you can see that we really avoid their products. I think it's because we don't like to be controlled by a big US company (only to forget about it when it comes to Smartphones, but even there, Samsung is stronger over here).

In Spain we have some kind of phobia related to Microsoft brand because of Windows and Bill Gates. I never understood why but it is the way it is here. 

In my opinion it was ps3 high price that helped xbox360 grow in european market. I remember the price was like 500e (not sure) compared 200 for ps2. Also high price of xbox one with kinect just killed the few options of the console here.

I also remember how at least here xbox 360 got rly popular to play cod games bc of the better and faster controls (just an anecdote).

Still its just a theory, its gonna be hard since ps ips are really big in europe but I hope Microsoft can do better next gen and show a bit of competition... Also curious about nintendo since home consoles dont do extremely well in EU (compared to other markets) but handhelds do so idk about switch haha

Is it? I have always heard people complaining about windows and all but I thought it was just the normal for spanish people (to complain about many stuff)... But thinking about it theres always been this disconfort with their products (I thought it was everywhere the same lol)

The jokes back in the 90's were already that windows was always slow and failed every time (blue screen) and that Bill Gates was a thief.

American companies were not well regarded in general back then... 

Here is another way to look at things.

2017

UK-680k

France-910k

Spain-300k

Portugal-20k

Combined-1910k

In Nintendo's Q3 FY presentation last year, they had a graph showing Switch had sold ~3.5 million in Europe as of January 20, 2018 so 3.3-3.4 million at the end of 2017 sounds about right.

That means those 4 countries made up roughly ~57 % of Europe sales. Now let's look at this years numbers.

2018

UK-820k

France-1130k

Spain-390k

Portugal-50k

Combined-2390k

Assuming those 4 countries still make up ~57% of Europe sales than it would have sold ~4.2 million in 2018 for a grand total of 7.5-7.6 million LTD for Europe so that would be about ~500k overtracked.

The European part of Russia is the biggest European " country", also most populated, 108 MLN, Germany is second with 82. The total number of Russian language users in Europe is well above 200m.

Thanks zorg for your input. And like I said a few days ago, I expect around 500-600k overtracked so it could match with what you are saying too.

What I am saying is just a theory. Is not a fact by  any means. Is just that when vgc fails at tracking hardware sales  historically has been always in the most difficult regions to track, like Europe as a whole and "others" . 

Then take the PS4 at his launch and you'd find that the PS4 was overtracked during the second year. We are back to square one. The numbers

In 2013 the PS4 sold 1682K in Europe.

UK (565K)+FR (260K)+ GE (278K) = 1103K (579K for the rest) or ~66% of european's sales.

So these 3 combined makes for ~66% of Europe's sales.

In 2014 the PS4 sold 6053K in Europe.

UK (1261K)+ FR (845K) + GE (1065K) = 3171K (2882K for the rest) or ~52% of european's sales.

If those 3 combined made for ~66% of Europe's sales, the "rest" would have been around 1586K. So was the PS4 overtracked for almost 1.3M units. ?

Or, perhaps, I say perhaps, new systems don't sell well outside the big western european markets. Then perhaps, I say perhaps, these markets start to grow when the console is a sucess. And for the biggest sucesses, they made up for more than half of the european sales.

But let's have a complete chart.

2013 : UK (565K)+FR (260K)+ GE (278K) = 1103K (579K for the rest) or ~66% of european's sales.

2014 : UK (1261K)+ GE (1065K) + FR (845K) = 3171K (2882K for the rest) or ~52% of european's sales.

2015 : UK (1148K) + GE (1371K) + FR (1026K) = 3545K out of 6859K (3314K for the rest) or ~52% of the sales.

2016 : UK (942K) + GE(1203K) + FR (973K) = 3118K out of 6795K (3677K for the rest) or ~46% of the sales.

If those 3 combined made of ~52% of the sale, the rest would have been around 3272K. 400K overtracked ?

2017 : UK (1213K) + DE (1312K) +FR (1020K) = 3545K out of 8094K (4549K for the rest) or ~44% of the sales.

2018 : UK (1100K) + GE (1163K) + FR (959K) = 3222K out of 7469K (4247K for the rest) or ~43% of the sales.

Now the Switch

2017 : UK (737K) + GE (567K) + FR (911K) = 2215K out of 3404K (1189K for the rest) or ~65% of the sales. Similar to the PS4 in 2013.

2018 : UK (821K) + GE(691K) + FR (1131K) = 2643K out of 4742K (2099K for the rest) or ~56% of the sales. Similar to the PS4 in 2014.

Why would you expect the same shares every year ?

@KingofTrolls : I know, but is Russia tracked in "Europe" for VGC ?

Is that sold or shipped?