It may take another four years for the Sony PlayStation 3's sales to catch up with those of Nintendo's Wii, a games market analyst has claimed.

Screen Digest’s Piers Harding-Rolls recently told the Economist magazine that PS3 sales will increase as more games become available for the console, enabling it to have “caught up with the Wii” by 2011.

The analyst predicted that global sales of both the Wii and PS3 will double by 2011, but that the Xbox 360’s global sales will slow.

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However, according to recent Japanese sales figures from games publisher Enterbrain, Sony sold 183,217 PS3s during the four weeks ended 25 November in the country. Nintendo only sold 159,193 Wiis.

Harding-Rolls added that programmers previously tempted gamers by developing titles primarily for the PS2. However, he now believes that the PS3, Wii and Xbox 360 are in an ongoing “console war” and that each will be the leading console at some point in the future. He claimed this will result in more tempting deals to lure gamers into buying a particular console.

However, the must-have Christmas Wii console is still the most searched for term amongst online shoppers in the UK of late.

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