um actully, only reason GM or ford are alive today is consumer preferences of the flag.

 no matter how crap GM cars got there were many people that got a Gm car just becasue its American, might want to take a look at the comments on gminsidenews forums.

Nationalism plays into consumer preferences but I don't think people in North America really understand this; both Canada and the United States are remarkably large countries which are made up of a large collection of people with different values and beliefs. Most countries in the world are reasonably small and have a more unified belief system and are more like states or provinces in North American terms.

200k in 2006. It's something like this 'cause I have read somewhere that Wii sold 800k in europe/australia (first month).

So we can say that wii sold 200+144 = 344k to march, in france (despite strong short supplies) : great numbers ! 

 not so simple.  GM and Ford are still surviving largely thanks to the SUV's and pickups.  for passenger cars the the top 6 selling brands (corolla, camry, civic, etc) are japanese.  the japanese were late to that market and are still playing catch-up.

imagine it if it weren't for SUV's and pickups... in this age of high fuel prices, GM and Ford are in deep trouble indeed, although GM appears to be turning itself around.

but i'll give you that the french always have their own way of doing things.

The 360 only seems to be selling well in English Speaking countries (though i'm not sure about Australia). Everywhere else it performs like crap. The DS and Wii are the two best selling systems just about everywhere in the world so it's not surprising seeing them on top. Then there are 3 Sony systems that all outsell the 360 2 to 1. I'd be willing to bet you'd see similar preportions between Nintendo systems, Sony systems, and the 360 in countries like Germany and Spain.

Exactly Christopher. I've seen the top games sold from last week in France, and if GfK is to be believed, the situation is the same or worse in Germany as of games. And I guess it's the same for the console, derived from that.

So of the three biggest markets in France, only UK has XB360 selling well.

http://www.irwebcasting.com/070427/15/c05ccf3e9c/image/p41.gif

http://www.irwebcasting.com/070427/15/c05ccf3e9c/image/p44.gif

http://www.irwebcasting.com/070427/15/c05ccf3e9c/image/p45.gif

http://www.irwebcasting.com/070427/15/c05ccf3e9c/image/p42.gif

You won't see a single XB360 game in these charts. They do appear one or two weeks at launch of big titles like Lost Planet or Gears of War, but that's all.

Just goes to show that only talking of UK sales  doesn't give a good measure at all of what's selling in Europe. It's too biased towards USA tastes, which is not the reality of European tastes (UK isn't even in the Euro zone IIRC).

@ fabinou

Thanks for sharing this info ! 

Actually I believe the 360 to sell better than PS3. March was launch month for PS3 ans probably the "high" numbers are just launch numbers. We don´t know how the PS3 really sells.

But didn´t Nintendo say they didn´t ship that much consoles to Europe? I mean this thing is still sold out and I thought it was because of low shipments...

I am french, and if i had to sum up what i see around me (and in fora), it would be :

- Wii has gain a lot of momentum : last week, 3 colleegues came to me to ask me about my Wii. They intend to buy one and wanted to have my personnal feeling. I spoke to them about Wii sports, Zelda, Sonic and red steel (i dislike this one ...). I said to them to give it a try and take a month to think about a purchase...

- Xbox360 : noboby speaks about it. When i mention this is a high end device, most answers are "PS3 is so damn more powerfull, games PS3 will have in 2 years will completely destroy it". When i say this is false, nobody believes me (kudos to Sony PR in France ...) : i get sentences like "Cell is far more powerfull for graphics than Xbox360 's GPU". It is unmanageable to make them understand this is nonsense ...

- PS3 : i already half said the thing : way too expensive ATM, but in 2 years ... ?

 You're welcome kber81 !