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LATEST UK HARDWARE FIGURES: XBOX SURGE CONTINUES
Microsoft's bundling strategy continues to pay dividends as Xbox outsells GameCube by over two to one in the latest weekly figures
11:37 With Christmas rapidly approaching it's a healthy time across the board for UK consoles, in the latest set of hardware figures for the week ending November 1. Every format enjoyed a sales spike of sorts, although some fared better than others.
For the second week in a row, Xbox was the success story, achieving sales over 65 percent higher than the previous week's figure, further justifying Microsoft's decision to assault the market with highly desirable bundles instead of a straight price cut. And while GameCube enjoyed a modest boost in sales, Xbox is now outselling Nintendo's console by over two to one per week, thanks in no small part to the incredible deal retailer GAME is offering: an Xbox, plus copies of Halo, Midtown Madness 3, Medal of Honor: Frontline Classic, TimeSplitters 2 Classic and a free trial subscription to Xbox Live, all for the ludicrously cheap price of 139.99.
Elsewhere, it was a mixed week for handheld devices, with both GBA and GBA SP enjoying sales increases of around 40 percent for the period, with the forthcoming Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire bundles likely to provide a major drive towards Christmas.
However, it was another disappointing week for Nokia's N-Gage, at least as far as ChartTrack's 6,000 specialist games retailers were concerned. Although enjoying a 13 percent increase on the previous week's figure, combined sales of GBA and SP were over 60 times greater than that of N-Gage, although the ChartTrack figures fail to take into account sales through specialist mobile phone retailers. But there's still no sign of official figures from Nokia itself.
Finally, Sony's all-conquering PlayStation 2 enjoyed sales up almost 20 percent, outselling nearest rival Xbox by almost three to one, although Microsoft's console has gained considerable ground.
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