Speaking with MCV, European chief Chris Lewis has told us that rocketed at the tail-end of the period, shooting up 120 per cent.

"Christmas 2008 was the biggest sales period in the history of the Xbox brand," the executive beamed.

"Sales of the console were more than double over the period a year before, in excess of 120 per cent in fact. We’ve had record sales in January too - much better than we anticipated. We're at over 8 million console sales to end of 2008."

Lewis assured that won't now be sitting back, either, the big cheese telling us we can expect further big investments in Xbox going forward, with the still a focus.

"The UK remains one of our strongest markets. We've now been consistently ahead of our in terms of for a long and sustained period, and we're going to keep it that way."

By Luke Guttridge