360 price cut sees sales double in Europe

In the first stage of the next-generation console war, the pint-sized Wii was the clear budget choice in Europe; at £179.99, it was £80 cheaper than the next-best option, the Xbox 360 Core.

All that changed in March, when Microsoft announced that it would be cutting the price of all of its Xbox 360 SKUs, meaning that the Xbox 360 Arcade--which replaced the Core SKU in October 2007--swapped places with the Wii and became the cheapest console at £159.99. The other two models, the Premium and the Elite, also shed £40, making them £199.99 and £259.99 respectively.

In just over a month since the "price readjustment," Microsoft is reporting that sales of the console have more than doubled. However, a representative for the company declined to give sales figures for the region before and after the cost cut and would not reveal how individual SKU sales were going.

According to figures that Microsoft is happy to release, the Xbox 360 is leading the pack in PAL territories, owning 42 percent of the market in terms of "life-to-date revenue," and has the highest attach rate of the three next-gen consoles, at 7.0 games per console. In comparison, the PlayStation 3 has 3.8, and the Wii 3.5.