So Christmas is well and truly over with some people happy with their presents and others now trying to make up for them in the January sales :-)

Microsoft's Xbox 360, Nintendo's Wii and Sony's Playstation 3 all battled it out to be the number one Christmas present, so who won...? Well this may come as a surprise to some but in 3rd place for the UK retail market was in fact the Playstation 3. In December last year the Xbox 360 outsold the PS3 by more than 3 to 1. Part of the reason behind this is due to the pricing of the two different games consoles. The cheapest price for the PS3 was £279.99, whereas Microsoft got aggressive with their pricing and Xbox 360s were (and still are) retailing for under £159.99. The fact is that is far too much of a difference! Is your PS3 really worth an extra £120?

So what was no.1 between the Wii and the Xbox 360... It was the Wii of course! Where the PS3 and the Xbox 360 appeal predominantly to extreme gamers the Wii appeals to a broader audience such as families and casual gamers. Nintendo was the big daddy in the gaming market in the 90s with their Super Nintendos and Nintendo 64s but when Sony came onboard to release Playstation, Nintendo's market share suffered badly. So they needed to do something radical and that's just what they did with the Wii. The most interactive games console ever seen has revolutionised the games consoles market and has left the PS3 and the Xbox 360 in it's wake. With games packs like the Wii Fit playing computer games can now be part of a healthy and fun workout.

Microsoft have recognised the broad family appeal that the Wii has and has tried to capture some of the market with games such as 'Your in the Movies' and their karaoke game 'Lips' and Sony have also released a karaoke game. We can expect to see further family orientated releases from both of these companies in 2009. The question is, will they be developing a new games console to rival the interactivity of the Nintendo Wii...