When it comes to gaming markets, the USA stands above all others. But who stands just below it? For the longest time, it was Japan, but as of January 2009, it's the UK.
Yes, as Japanese consumers grow increasingly weary of purchasing gaming consoles and software - even those made by Nintendo - seems Britons can't get enough of them.
Game sales in Ol' Blighty were up 37% compared to January 2008, while total software sales in 2008 were up 26%, both of those figures enough for GfK-ChartTrack to announce (though they of course won't ever reveal the actual numbers) that the British gaming market was now "the second biggest territory in the world".
There are a number of factors at play here. For starters, while Japanese consumers have already bought their fill of the Nintendo DS and PSP, they're still flying off the shelf in the UK. Secondly, the Wii "phenomenon" shows no signs of abating in Britain, as regular observers of our weekly sales charts are no doubt already familiar with.
Not a bad achievement, all things considered, what with the population of Japan being over twice that of the UK and all.