Who said consumers are feeling miserable? There is certainly money splashing around to buy computer games — one look at the weather suggests this is a week for staying in, worrying about the mortgage, stocking up on rice and playing games to forget.

Not only is there the launch of Grand Theft Auto IV — how easy it is for the non-gamer to get excited about that — but significantly, there has also been the huge success of Wii Fit, a previously unthinkable combination of exercise and computer game that has had shoppers sprinting to their favourite retailer. Neither game is cheap: Wii Fit is £69.99, although presumably you can cancel the gym membership/curry club subscription. Grand Theft Auto IV can be had for £39.99 and that is an awful lot of alcopops.

What's interesting is that the games market is now broad enough to support two enormous game launches simultaneously. Wii Fit sold 200,000 copies on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and is for the moment pretty much sold out until Nintendo gets a few more in — generating a handy £14million at the tills.

A figure for GTA is not yet to hand, as the game has been out only a day but, as a guide, Woolworths was selling 200 an hour at peak, compared with 90 an hour for Wii Fit on its Friday release day. Given that Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas sold 677,000 in its first week in the UK, a reasonable bet for its first week sales this time is at least 400,000 and half a million looks reasonable — another £20 million changing hands.

The double hit makes this week arguably the most significant for the computer games business in Britain. Game, the biggest retailer, can keep accurate data on its customers because half of them sign up for its loyalty card (there are, apparently six million in the UK). The results are hardly surprising but worth spelling out.

The customers are two halves of Britain — Coronation Street on the one hand and Skins on the other. GTA buyers, the Skins, as it were, are mostly aged 18 to 25, 81 per cent are male (the surprise is that the female component is so high) and 45 per cent have been buying from the retailer over the past five years. But Wii Fit buyers, the Corrie crowd, are typically 36 to 40, and 42 per cent are women. It seems clear we are all gamers now.

Even the moral argument about casual violence is not so intense this time around. Although the GTA designers at Rockstar are hopeless defenders of their own art — being low-profile types who rarely give interviews — enough people have played first person shooters to realise that the games don't necessarily induce immediate violence in the real world. But that has come as people realise that violence isn't the be all and end all either, as anybody who has squandered half the night playing Civilization will know.

Comparators also seem to bear out the notion that games are mass-market business. Casino Royale, a big film by any reckoning, grossed £13.4 million in its first weekend — less than Wii Fit — and it is rare for a picture to take more than £10 million in the UK.

But is is not quite so simple as that because the number of people who see a blockbuster film is far greater because the tickets cost much less than the games do.

Nor, for all the excitement, are computer games steady earners for their parent companies: while there are six stable, successful Hollywood studios, nestling in larger conglomerates, there are only two games majors outside the console makers. The rest of the business is in financial turmoil, not least Take Two, the company behind GTA, which was the subject of a shareholder coup last year and is now facing a takeover bid.

Take a look at the audience figures again. How many people will play Grand Theft Auto IV in its first week ... perhaps 1.5 million; and perhaps 750,000 will try Wii Fit. Big numbers, of course, although not as many as read popular newspapers every day — priced far more reasonably than £40-plus — and not as many as watch the big shows on television. While some people spent Tuesday gaming, it is worth remembering that others carried on watching TV. On Channel 4, The Simpsons hit 2.2 million, up 300,000 on the week; Hollyoaks was watched by 1.9 million, up 100,000 both shows that hit GTA's demographic and both audiences almost certainly bigger than will have been achieved by the game.

Computer games are fun but the reality is that somehow, Britons find a bit of time for everything, which is why evenings and weekends can be so much more enjoyable.

Standard practice has Labour MPs muttering

The Evening Standard's assault on Ken Livingstone brings back memories of the days when large parts of the press were hostile to Labour. Love it or loathe it, there is little doubt that the right-wing Standard is having a powerful influence on the mayoral election but its success has some Labour types muttering.

That in turn will make it harder for Labour MPs to accept a reform of public service broadcasting that sees cash taken from the BBC, which is seen as a bulwark against partisan newspapers in that party.

Mind you, Labour may not be in power when the next broadcasting Bill comes around.

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