Xbox will 'never be Europe's number one' say analysts

Microsoft's Xbox will never lead the European console market according to analysts, despite a boost in sales since £100 was cut from the price of the unit.

Xbox sales figures have dominated the European market since its launch, accounting for 49 per cent of all console sales in the UK, 46 per cent in France and 55 per cent in Germany, according to Microsoft figures.

However, Paul O'Donovan, consumer electronics analyst at Gartner, and Adrian Drozd, gaming analyst at Datamonitor, said these figures will not win Microsoft market dominance.

O'Donovan said: "Xbox is capturing a second phase of fans - those who couldn't afford the console previously. I expect this buying trend to trail off soon."

Drozd agreed: "I think this is a short-term thing. A lot of people were probably hanging around waiting for a price cut."

Both analysts said Sony's PlayStation 2 console will ultimately retain its market lead.

Drozd added: "PlayStation 2 has been out for at least 18 months already which is why Xbox looks like it's selling more. Xbox may outsell PlayStation 2 now but PlayStation 2 has a big library of games behind it and has backwards compatibility to [the original] PlayStation, which is where Sony beats Microsoft."

O'Donovan added: "Sony will lead because it's got an awful lot of software around for people to swap, borrow and reuse which provides a very strong motivation to buy into PlayStation."

Nintendo claims to have sold 75,000 GameCube consoles during its first two days on the market.

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