Xbox 360 sales up 40% in UK

THE CONSOLE war is hotting up, but Microsoft's recent Xbox 360 price-drop could potentially harm the PS3's recent progress.

Xbox 360 Last weekend the Xbox 360 saw an impressive 40 per cent sales spike in the UK following a European price cut.

According to Chart-Track, via Gamesindustry.biz, despite the Xbox 360 hardware boost, the software sales did not see an increase, but Microsoft dismissed this due to the strong showing the previous week by Army of Two and Bully.

Chart-Track director Dorian Bloch revealed: "Xbox 360 is up 35-40 per cent - that's from Friday, when the price cut came into effect, up to midnight Saturday.

"Now it's a question of Easter," he added. "The real litmus test will be over the next three to four weeks – it's too early to read too much into it at this stage."

This week has uncovered several new Xbox 360 consoles. Firstly, the limited edition GTA branded 360 which will only have a production run of 500 units, but looks pretty cool. This will only be available to the press, and considering Microsoft's lack of conversation with us, we suspect we won't see one in the flesh.

Secondly, there's this one off Bill Gates edition. Lucky git.

If you're more into modding your controllers, check out this flash 360 joystick. Or maybe you like to do things one handed (oh er), therefore this controller.

PS3/PSP
Similarly to the 360, the PS3 has also seen a limited edition console announcement this week. The Metal Gear Solid 4 gunmental PS3 will be launched in Japan on June 12th.

The Blu-Ray 2.0 spec (or BD-Live) is just days from launch, as the INQ recently reported. Sony has announced that the next Playstation3 firmware updated, v2.20, will add the new interactive features to the PS3.

If PCWorld is correct, then it also looks like the firmware might include the introduction of 'portable copy' - the ability to copy supporting Blu-Ray titles to a PSP for playback.

The PSP also had a firmware announcement - the availability of version 3.93 which expands support for Playstation Network titles and adds 20 new internet radio players for users of the PSP Internet Radio feature.

Wii/DS
More sales records have been broken by Nintendo, as the company has announced that Super Smash Bros. Brawl for the Wii has sold more than 1.4 million copies in the US in just one week - making it the fastest-selling game in Nintendo's history.

Brawl sold more than 874,000 on March 9, and has sold at a rate of more than 120 units per minute between that launch date and March 16.

Despite this, Nintendo's stock was downgraded this week due to fears of slowing system demand.

KBC Securities Japan downgraded Nintendo's stock from a "buy" to a "hold" recommendation because of worries that Wii and DS sales will slow after " explosive growth" in the last year.

If music is more you thing, you might be interested in a NES harmonica.

Or you could get a guitar-hero based addition to your DS - the 'Guitar Grip'. µ