Take Away English-Games War（在线收听）

Perfect Dark Zero looks set to be an Xbox 360 hit

With the release in the UK of the Microsoft Xbox 360, the first shot has been fired in the long-awaited war between ‘third generation’ games consoles.

Gamers all over the country queued overnight for their chance to snap up the much-coveted games console. Demand has been so great that virtually every Xbox 360 in the UK was sold within a matter of hours.

However, not only gamers have been eager to get their hands on the Xbox – thousands of consoles have gone on sale on the online auction site eBay with prices averaging around £600, three times more expensive than the retail price.

By releasing their console first, Microsoft hope to take an early lead in the race to dominate a global market worth $25 billion. Snapping at their heels are arch-rivals Sony and Nintendo.

Sony’s Play Station 3 is due to roll out in Japan in spring 2006, with the US and Europe following later in the year. According to its manufacturers, it will set a new standard in the power of gaming machines. Chris Keegan, Technical Director claims that if the PS3 had existed in 1998, it would have been the most powerful super-computer in the world.

Although the latest machines are many times more powerful in raw processing terms than their predecessors, the way in which the user interacts with the console via a joystick or controller has remained largely unchanged.

However, all that will change with the release in 2006 of the Nintendo Revolution. Nintendo’s new console will indeed be ‘revolutionary’ in that it introduces a new kind of wireless controller.

Similar in appearance to a TV remote control, the Nintendo controller is waved in front of the TV screen causing corresponding actions on screen. The Nintendo demonstration video shows the controller being used as a gun in a first–person shooter, a fishing rod and even as a conductor’s baton.

The battle of the consoles may have begun, but the war is far from over.