Its because the U.K. is a nation of self hating PS3 fanboy Xbox 360 owners. I know this because Kantor tells me so. So it makes perfect sense that during the recession the U.K. Mafia will force the English people to buy Xbox 360s and that it would sell more than the Wii. The Mafia is a very powerful organisation, they have cameras everywhere!

Edit: Mainly its because the Xbox 360S is now black and shiny and has touch sensitive buttons. So the people in the UK think they are actually buying a PS3 phat at a reasonable price.

Lol haha :D

Just to put things into perspective, Modern Warfare 2 bundles (80k) were sold out in the first week.

It all depends on Microsoft how many they want to produce til Reach launch.

Given that 360 will fall a bit until mid September, 40% hardware rise shouldn't be much of a problem.

The problem is though if you look at UK total PS3 numbers it is about 3m while 360 is around 5m. The gap is increasing by loads. In just the past 4 weeks in uk alone 360 sold 190k. And PS3 sold just 30k. That is before the new arcades have even released here.

The last time a proper GT game released there were nearly 10m PS2's to sell to in the UK at that point. While GT5 will sell well here it won't sell anywhere near what it used to just because the landscape has changed. A lot of those GT fans have become Forza fans. A lot of those old GT fans don't have a PS3 this gen. Would they buy a PS3 to play GT5? Of course they would. Only IF GT5 was a better game then Forza 3. If the game gets bad reviews then it is going to damage it bigtime here because it releases here after the game is released in US. Which i think is a strange move. People in UK won't buy stuff simply because something once was great and sold xyz amounts. They will buy it if it is any good. If GT5 is good then they will buy it. It will then effect PS3 sales here. But if it is average and not worth paying the £250 your be paying to play it then i don't think it will have much effect on sales.

Why was Q4 2009 so strong for the Wii (was it pricecuts, new release(s) or just the holidays)?

It's the Wii, and it's the holidays. Not to mention it perfectly hit the zeitgeist with an almost unparalleled conflagration of events coming together to create one of the best quarter 4s any console has ever seen, and likely will ever see, in the UK. Price cut, new black model, two of it's biggest SW releases ever (NSMB and Just Dance), and it's first holiday without major supply problems.

Oh I miss the times where the Wii used to sell the double of the X360 and people wouldn't compare both sales because both consoles weren't from the same league.

How times have changed.

Ontopic:

I think from now on 360 sales will lose steam and the Wii sales will see the usual ridiculous Holidays bump, but even so it should be a close tie I guess.

OR, if Nintendo launches a Wii Slim, no console stands a chance and we will be back to 2008 numbers.

Seece will not let this one go it seems. Yes, it seems UK belongs to the 360 right now, this year.

Am I wrong or are the Brits stronger XB fans than the Americans themselves?

U.K and Americas are pretty much done for this year...

360 >> Wii >>> Ps3.

But we have TGS yet we never know what Nintendo has up their sleeves... if they launch a Wii Slim everything will change and 360 will back to 2nd place.