microsoft's strongest ground is their own ground. Its very normal for a country to favour products from its own manufacturers.
The UK seems to have quite a following but its fighting with PC gamers, esp in other parts of europe and most of the 360 catalogue is available on the PC anyway so why would they bother to get a 360. Im sure the whole RRoD thing is doing damage everywhere but maybe NA is a little more tollerant?

@ nine0nine)

yea, in my opinion it's correct ,that europeans heavily favor products ,which aren't prone to breaking and appreciate the extra quality even if it comes with a higher price tag

for example european cars are made with much more precision than american cars and therefore usually have a longer lifespan

Playstation brandname captures high-end consumers with PS3; Nintendo captures low-end (both budget-wise) with its DS and Wii. Some still play the PS2 since it has PES. There's no room for Xbox brand to fit in.

1. It's expensive and it isn't a Playstation. Only Sony can afford to screw up as much as they have and still have fans.

2. It's heavily focused on FPS and online. Europe doesn't hate those things like Japan, but doesn't like them as much as the US either.

3. It's from the US, and everything from that side of the Atlantic has a bad reputation due to a bunch of reasons like how they elected a monkey for a president, his enthusiasm to occupy random developing countries, and how there is actually debate on wether evolution and climate change exist. Disagree with me as much as you like, but this is how a lot of people perceive things.

The last reason probably gets too much attention, but it's definitely there.

Let's not forget the RROD that hasn't been solved yet, as well.

1. I agree.

2. I'd rather say that in EU PC gaming is still strong and on PC there's plenty of FPS...in Uk, where PC gaming is less strong X360 is doing really good.

3. no, the real issue is that it's from MS and a lot of people just hate MS products (windows/office)...was it from Apple it wouldn't have any problem.

having said this i don't think that x360 is doing bad...it's doing better than the original xbox even if it's more expensive and this year it will easily pass xbox total sales. 

Quality - The PS3 is such a nice package (built in HDD,PSU,WiFi,BluTooth,Blu-Ray,HDMI and card readers) and while marginally more expensive it's better value overall.
360 is doing great in others really it has a 1 year lead so plenty of units are out there.
Think that PS3 is such good value it's not supprising it's overtaken the 360 sales figures in most places, mabey one day they will write some cool new games with motion, voice recognition and so on.
If MS lower price dramatically (below the Wii's) they can compete against it but then they would make a greater loss by doing so.
What is supprising is the 360 still hold the sales lead over PS3 in the US.
It's really a huge success for MS, who right now are raking in huge software licence fees.

While I don't think that 360 sales are horrible, it would take a lot for them to outsell Sony in Europe. Sony has built up its reputation over the last decade or so and it will be extremely difficult for Microsoft to dislodge them in that region.

Sony has thrown way more millions marketing it's brand in Europe than Microsoft has. We are talking things like F1 or the Champion's League (both major events here in Europe).

"week after week, I see the 360 placing last in Others."

The same question could be why is the PS3 doing worse than the 360 in the US? At the moment the pros & cons of 360 and PS3 are (as I see it)

360:

+Halo3
+Online Mode
+apart from Halo slightly better game lib and better multiplatform versions
-RRoD

PS3:
+BluRay
+Sony name (includes future games)
+Design (many will say that is not important but I think this is a wrong assumption)
+great quality

I think the two biggest advantages of the 360 in the US Halo and the online community just aren't that big in Europe. When I want to play online I take out my PC (keyboard/mouse and RTS ftw). And Halo is not that big outside the US. So over here the clear hardware advantages of the PS3 play out.