Drawing its figures from the results of searches searches on its site, Pricegrabber was able to judge demand for each of the next generation consoles for the six weeks after launch.

The price comparison engine, whose clients include Comet, Amazon and Play, found that interest in the Playstation 3 improved 100 per cent in the two weeks leading up to launch. The results also showed that in the six weeks after launch, searches had increased a further 127 per cent.

Figures for the Wii and Xbox 360 state that during the same period of time after their launches, the Nintendo and Microsoft consoles were up 579 per cent and 250 per cent respectively.