During the last few months of last year it seemed that the was destined for an early grave. With some stockists removing Nintendo's purple box from their shelves and some truly dire predictions from the it did appear that the console wars would be down to just two major combatants. Well the funeral's not happening yet. Sales figures for this rose 88% year-on-year here in Europe, with software also enjoying a 45% jump.

Nintendo officials now put the installed user base at just under 3 million units, still well under the PS2's 21 million but not bad for the little console that could.

By Sam Gibson