Thanks to our own dazzling moderator, Dazzla, for the heads up on this in BPN.
Christmas 2002 was an unsurprisingly buoyant period for the console market, with Sony"s PlayStation2 continuing to lead the competition.
Did Mummy and Daddy buy you a swanky new PS2 for Christmas? They certainly weren"t alone, with a grand total of 226,060 units of Sony"s console sold across the UK in the final two weeks of 2002, continuing PS2"s dominance of the console market.
But in the run up to Christmas, the rise in sales continued across the board, with Nintendo"s Game Boy Advanced & GameCube, and Microsoft"s Xbox looking healthy as Santa prepared to squeeze down the world"s chimneys.
For the week ending December 21, GBA sold 34,568 units (up 16 percent), GameCube shifting 15,943 units (up 19 percent), Xbox on 38,727 (up 18 percent) and PS2 ruling the roost with 128,369 units (up 16 percent).
For the week ending December 28, sales understandably underwent something of a dip, as a result of fewer shopping days, and most people having already made purchases in advance of Christmas Day. Nevertheless, over this period, PS2 still achieved 97,691 sales, with GBA on 22,373, Xbox on 31,735 and GameCube on 10,866.
The last figures will make sobering reading for Nintendo Europe, with Microsoft continuing to pull clear in second spot.