According to Stephen McGill, head of gambling and entertainment for Xbox UK, the "Xbox 360 is uniquely placed to take the UK by storm this Christmas". After yesterday's announcement of a price cut for the gaming console, we thought it high time to update our statistics on searches for gaming consoles.

Last week, the Nintendo Wii was the most searched for gaming console in the UK, with share of UK Internet searches for "nintendo wii" 49% higher than "xbox 360". However, the Wii's position is not unchallenged. Two weeks ago, the Nintendo DS held the top spot and in mid-June the Xbox 360 was in first place. This makes the UK market, at least measured by Internet searches, much flatter than the US market, where the Wii has dominated since its launch.

So what impact will yesterday's price cut have on the Xbox? Internet searches are often a leading indicator of interest and so we will watch this closely. We update our search data weekly, so we'll post updated search statistics next week. In the meantime, I can tell you that enthusiasm seems a bit muted. The top website to receive UK Internet visits from searches for "xbox 360" is www.xbox.com. Based on daily data, the website didn't get a lift yesterday on the news. We will post an update next week to see whether as the news filters out enthusiasm grows.

Heather Hopkins

Heather Hopkins is VP of Research for Hitwise UK. This piece was first posted on Hitwise Analyst blog here.

Flickr photo by: riksmeets