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Toys R Us and its online store manager, Amazon.com, yesterday claimed that they had sold all of their initial batch of Xbox consoles within 30 minutes of the units going on sale. Cue whoops and hollers of joy from Xbox buffs and Microsofties, but what does Toys R Us' bulletin really say? Not a lot, actually, since neither company will say how many units had been put up for sale. One thousand; one hundred - or just one? The exact figure makes a big difference to just how successful its pre-order programme is. Almost no one else who has begun taking online pre-orders for the console appears to have sold out - and certainly not as quickly. Only Barnes & Noble subsidiary GameStop has managed it - and on just one bundle out of five separate packages. There's certainly an air of hyping it all up here. Toys R Us told Reuters its next pre-sale offer will kick off on 11 September. The use of the word 'next' implies a series of such offers, all undoubtedly designed to fuel demand among buyers who think they're getting something special. Toys R Us is pre-selling Xbox in a bundle of console, add-ons and software. All together, the package comes to $499, rather more than the $299 Microsoft will be asking for the console alone when it ships in the US on 8 November. ®

The Official ECTS Awards were announced during the recent London trade show, with the main prizes voted on by a panel of journalists, not including ourselves. As such the winners don't necessarily tally with our own opinions, which we'll be giving you tomorrow, but the companies which took home gongs from the show are obviously very excited about it all, and have been bombarding us with press releases for the last two days accordingly.

Red Storm have made a name for themselves in recent years with the popular Rainbow Six series. Although it's not a true sequel to those classic games, Ghost Recon is very much more of the same, but this time putting you in the boots of an elite US military squad rather than an international counter-terrorist force.

Having got home safely from the wilds of East London in (more or less) one piece, our ECTS Diary feature has been updated with reports on what I got up to on the Monday and Tuesday of the show. This included a one-on-one session with Blizzard, the Anarchy Online party, and a look at Funcom's next massively multiplayer game, Midgard, as well as visits to CDV, Jo Wood, Wanadoo and Phantagram amongst others. Not to mention disco dancing in Omni 1, racing through the streets of a futuristic New York, battling snipers in war-torn 1960s Europe, drink driving in Africa and stomping around in Transformers-style giant robots. And people said ECTS was boring this year. Shame on them.

Nintendo's Satoru Iwata, who conducted the European unveiling of Pokemon Mini, the Card-E Reader and Kirby's Tilt 'N' Tumble for Game Cube on Saturday afternoon has spoken to Japanese website Dengeki about the response to Spaceworld, Zelda, the Game Cube hardware and how Nintendo plans to deal with online gaming. The response to Spaceworld was difficult to gauge, because nobody really knew what to expect in the first place. Iwata believes that "many people came to the event wondering what we were going to announce." The obvious possibilities being another delay, an online gaming announcement or similar. "I think once they got a chance to experience the software at Spaceworld they had no more doubts." One topic Iwata will never be able to rid himself of is the question of whether the Cube is launching with too few titles. Two games on launch day and another a day later pales in comparison to the enormous run of titles that arrived with the PlayStation 2. The justification is still that very few people would realistically buy more than one or two anyway. "We could release more, but I don't think it's too few," Iwata told the interviewer. "It's important that each game has a chance to reach its sales potential." A lot of good games launched with PlayStation 2, but games that might have sold well if they were released in their own time suffered as a result. "Look at hardware launches recently, it looks great when you have plenty of software available, but players grow tired of those games quickly. We're not going to try and use the number of titles in our software library as a marketing weapon." Next the discussion moved on to Zelda and Shigeru Miyamoto's announcement. Dengeki described the reaction to Zelda as "intense." Iwata agreed. "It was clearly divided between the good and bad. That was expected though, because it was so different from anything we've shown before. Even within Nintendo, some people were confused and speechless when they first saw it. It's always like that when you introduce something unexpected." In explanation of the graphical changes, Iwata reports that Miyamoto has grown disillusioned with the "endless pursuit of realism". He believes that it has caused many games to lose their "sense of individuality". There is a compelling argument for what he's saying. With each step the series takes towards realism, we lose part of the fantasy that made the game so popular in the first place. Personally, I've never held Ocarina of Time or Majora's Mask in the same class as Zelda III on the Super Nintendo and Zelda IV on the Game Boy. They are very different styles of game, and Miyamoto's latest is clearly inspired by the latter two rather than the former. "He's taking things in a new direction, and I think that's befitting of 'Zelda'," Iwata said. With the subject of Zelda out of the way, Dengeki tried a lighter note, quizzing him about the Game Cube's handle. Simply put, "We wanted a machine that players could move easily for the best experience, albeit a study room, a bedroom, whatever is most convenient for them." It's a shame about the huge trail of cables - perhaps with the next console some sort of low-cost base station will be produced to make the movement between areas even more convenient. The wireless gamepad is clearly a move in this direction. Finally the pair discussed online gaming. "That seems to be a hot topic of discussion these days," Iwata observed, but instead of talking about cable Internet, ADSL and other fledgling technologies he went back to basics, once again reminding us that the console is a technology for all ages, and how much Nintendo values the younger gamer. "For the average players there are several barriers. For example, narrowband players would need to have a telephone line in the vicinity, and since they don't have credit cards they'd need their parents to subscribe to a network and pay monthly fees. We believe a game that might sell 1 Million copies normally would likely sell less than 200,000 copies if it was network based." Iwata does believe that some of Nintendo's games have benefited from the advances in online gaming though, singling out new forms of communication between players as a plus. "In the past we've adapted similar elements offline into games like Smash Brothers. We've devoted an entire research team to devising a network strategy and cope with these issues." Which, to put it bluntly, is the console giant's version of 'when it's done'. Related Feature - The Nintendo Show

The game is set in the past in a cartoon world where compelling little creatures called Dinoz exist. Dinoz have evolved into four various species, and have created a form of entertainment called DinozBall, a rule free team sport where the object is to score goals using a dinosaur egg. The object of the game is to train up four lively Dinoz as a team, choosing from 28 species (from four distinctive groups; two legz, crawlies, four legz and birdies) and teaching them in one of three behavioural disciplines; aggression, defence or speed. With your Dinoz assembled you must then compete in various "stadiums", which are actually tiny continents consisting of ice packs, deserts, canyons, swamps, lava flows and even forests and jungles. Apart from the other team of Dinoz fighting for possession of the ball and the chance to pluck victory from your claws, there are various carnivorous plants and other inhabitants blocking your path. The final game will also ship with a split-screen multiplayer mode. The speaker at the Vivendi presentation described the game as "wacky team sport and action", but at its heart lies some very complex artificial intelligence programming. Through collaboration with MASA Oiko have produced DirectIA; a motivation-based decision engine. This allows them to give each of their Dinoz a "best trade off philosophy". So Dinoz make decisions for themselves based on what they have to achieve and the various forces at work. Presumably this means that even if a pass is on, they may think better of it if they spy a gap in the play.

Jet-ski racing games are very difficult to get right. The physics involved are much more exotic than those driving games are up against because the surface of the track is moving and swelling beneath you, before you even take the wind conditions, weather and your jet-ski's capabilities into account. It takes a lot of time and a lot of skill, and thankfully first-party developer Nintendo Software Technology have both in abundance. After an hour or so with what must have been a completed copy of Blue Storm this weekend at The Nintendo Show, we're pretty confident that NST has another hit on its hands. Visually, the game is everything it ought to be, with swirling waves breaking against rocks and wooden jumps, amazingly detailed variation in the surface of the water and moreover, sumptuously detailed islands, houses, boats, buildings and other extraneous details. Viewing screenshots in your web browser really can't do the game justice. With movement you see little variations, like the wind skipping the tops from the waves, the reflection of your jet-ski and the scenery in the water, partially submerged bonus hoops and icebergs stretching into the dark, and underwater detail that N64 would choke on. On one track, set in the arctic or thereabouts, killer whales swim amongst huge towering ice bergs and thanks to tidal variations (as witnessed on several of the tracks), the water recedes so that on subsequent laps paths you had been relying upon are all but inaccessible and new routes must be located; sometimes at the cost of a few seconds of race time.

BT Wholesale will half the cost of ADSL installation for three months from October, and as a result ISPs up and down the land are scrambling to announce offers based on the decision. The reduction means the cost per new user will fall from £150 to £75 for BT's IPStream 500 service. The move is designed to boost demand for the service, The Register reports. El Reg also confirms that Nildram, PlusNet, Zen and Eclipse have moved to announce reductions from October to the New Year. While PlusNet and Zen have dropped the cost to £75, Eclipse and Nildram have taken things one step further. Eclipse will now charge £25 for install, with the money donated to a charity fund. Nildram on the other hand, who recently announced MoveDSL, a service which reduced the cost of moving from another ISP to Nildram to £60, have agreed that all customer installations of the three month period will be reduced to zero. That's whether you're coming from a competitor or starting afresh, we can confirm. MoveDSL is apparently a separate service to the standard USB 500 option. If you order between October 1st and December 31st of this year, your installation fee will be quashed. Meanwhile, East Yorkshire ISP Kingston Telecommunications has angered users of its always-on ADSL service by introducing a data cap. Users will be limited to a daily download quota of 700Mb, the company says.

EuroGamer's ECTS 2001 coverage has been updated to reflect the events of Saturday, Sunday and now Monday. Read about Vivendi's ECTS announcements, with three new console games including a first person shooter and a new horror title in the works, and catch up with hardware developments from Intel, Guillemot, Hercules, ST, ATI, ELSA and NVIDIA. We'll be back for more on Tuesday. Related Feature - ECTS 2001 Diary

Blizzard's big press conference is currently taking place here at ECTS, and those of you expecting Diablo III or Starcraft II are in for a slight surprise. Peeking through the glass door of the conference room (there are two press conferences today and we're booked in for the second one, which is just about to start), it appears that Blizzard has actually announced a new massively multiplayer game called World of Warcraft. Just a few months ago at a press event in London, Blizzard's Bill Roper described massively multiplayer as "the holy grail of game designers", adding that "if Blizzard ever goes into something like that I think it would obviously be a very different idea and model than we've done with anything else". With the second press conference about to start, we should know soon exactly how different it's going to be...

It seems that even when poor Luigi gets a break, he ends up having the sand kicked in his face. It's just his luck - he inherits a beautiful mansion in a scenic area on the edge of a forest and it turns out that the darn thing is haunted. Luigi is nothing if not brave, though. Upon stepping into the mansion, he is set upon by a horde of spectral squatters, but before he has time to react a wily old professor with a vacuum cleaner and a flashlight locks onto the ghosts and sucks them into his backpack. It turns out that the mansion has been haunted for some time, and this kind fellow has a mind to do something about it. It also emerges that if Luigi can capture the ghosts using his vacuum cleaner, the prof. can trap them in a painting. With the ghosts gone, Luigi can finally live out a life of comfort in his new prize. So he sets off. If you can imagine a cross between Super Mario 64 and Ghostbusters, you've got a pretty good idea of what to expect. Luigi looks like a souped-up, marginally taller version of Mario from said game, and his little red vacuum looks like one of those portable Dysons. The attention to detail is quite something - you can even see his little thumb, trembling with fright, moving the switch on his torch between on and off.

Today at The Nintendo Show in London, Satoru Iwata unveiled the latest Nintendo handheld - Pokemon Mini. It sounds like a gimmick machine, but it really isn't. Pokemon Mini is quarter of the size of Game Boy Advance, and features a D-Pad, two control buttons, rumble and IR functions and its own cartridge slot, for which four games are currently in development. We don't know when the pint sized portable will launch, nor which games will feature, but with a name like that it's fairly obvious what a portion of the games will be dedicated to.

For a year now, Nintendo have stimulated incredible retail performance in hardware and software. Today at The Nintendo Show in London, the suited figures of Satoru Shibata, Satoru Iwata and David Gosen explained how Nintendo had broken international sales records this year, and how it intends to transcend the borders between its consoles in the coming few. They also delivered the company's ongoing strategy - total dedication to gaming - to investors, retail chiefs and the press, outlining new initiatives that would appeal to gamers young and old. It was a heck of a show, with gospel singers leading us in and out to the tune of "Ain't No Mountain High Enough".

Arena Technik Limited, a company that sprang from the ashes of Gameplay Plc. headed by Bruce Heck (former CTO) and Tim Gummer (former head of GP Studios), has purchased the assets and intellectual property relating to Gameplay's Wireplay multiplayer gaming network. This cost Arena Technik £132,500, split between an initial cash sum of £65,000 and a deferred consideration of £67,500 payable over the next three years. Wireplay's staff will not be following the assets and intellectual property however, as they have headed off to BlueYonder to help front its value-added gaming services which launch at the end of September. Arena Technik's website, which launched last week, had to be ripped to shreds within days after its authors, Heck and Gummer, made the unfortunate mistake of placing their mobile telephone numbers prominently on the front page and in a flash presentation. Apparently this attracted quite a lot of attention from former Gameplay fans and employees, with whom the pair weren't all that popular.

As many of you will already know, the ubiquitous Counter-Strike modification for Half-Life is soon to reach version 1.3. With this new release, the emphasis has been on quashing bugs and niggles that have caused problems for players of this global teamplay phenomenon. A couple of new maps have been added and others refined, but it doesn't look like chief programmer Gooseman has elected to fill the update out with extra weapons for once. Something the CS community will no doubt be thankful for. The list of changes, recently added to the Counter-Strike.net website, indicate that several additions will be made to try and level the playing field, including the eradication of bunny-hopping, a technique used to speed through levels extremely quickly by exploiting a physics bug and the removal of a dangerous buffer overflow bug that allowed malicious players to boot fellow gamers from servers mid-game. Actual gameplay changes will include the ability to hear enemy radio calls if within earshot. Previously radio binds - used for requesting backup and alerting team mates to enemy presence amongst other things - could be heard only by players of the same team. In a controversial move, any player within a certain distance of the call can make it out and pinpoint the direction with relative ease. Unfortunately, in this writer's opinion radio binds are barely used enough anyway, and this move will clearly encourage players to use them even less. It may elevate the standard of play in leagues and such, but I dare say public servers will become even quieter. Not a good thing. Radio binds may be entirely unnecessary anyway, since voice communications are built in to CS 1.3. On the plus side, Gooseman and co. are attempting to make the game more spectator-friendly, fixing bugs in the spectator mode and adding Multicast, a new system whereby players can view an overhead map ala the screenshot on the left. Flying around when you're dead is incredibly tedious, as often is spectating on Counter-Strike games in general - perhaps Multicast will help inject some interest into proceedings again. Counter-Strike 1.3 is due out in early September. The full list of changes and bug-fixes can be found at http://www.counter-strike.net.

Recently we took a look at 802.11b wireless networking equipment, remarking that for all the world it seemed like the perfect business and gaming appliance for the man who loathes cabling. If you could see past the pricetag, we argued, it was definitely worth investigating. Yesterday ELSA, one of the chief purveyors of 802.11b wireless networking equipment, announced that it planned to release a product called ELSA AirLancer Extender, an antenna capable of extending the range of the wireless networking from the already impressive 400m to an unprecedented 1Km. This will, they say, prove perfect for companies, desktop users and even education establishments who want to network their systems without the hassle of cables. We can see the benefit, particularly for universities and the like, where laptops are commonplace and networking is of paramount importance. Signal strength and throughput is reportedly very good, and can be used indoors or out. Related Feature - Networks Unplugged

Sony Computer Entertainment Europe has spelt out the firm's plans for PlayStation 2 online gaming this week, with senior veepee of development Phil Harrison telling the press that UK trials with Telewest will take place in November and December. The PlayStation 2's hard disk/communications device could be bundled as part of subscription-based online services, he further revealed. Telewest seem to have their brains about them with regards to gaming. Instead of attempting to make money directly from it, they appear to be using it to help encourage new user signups to the broadband cable modem service they provide in certain areas of the country. The Telewest BlueYonder gaming service for PC users will launch late next month. Related Feature - Telewest in Playstation alliance with Sony

Take 2 has just unveiled its results for the three months to July 31st, showing a decline in profits from $3.4m the previous year to $1.3m this year. The good news though is that net sales were up from $71.5m to $84.5m, helped by the arrival of Max Payne at the end of July. Max topped the PC charts in both Europe and America on release, making it Take 2's fastest selling PC game to date, and both PlayStation 2 and Xbox versions are expected to be ready for the all-important Christmas shopping frenzy. Other games likely to give Take 2 a boost in the second half of the year include Smuggler's Run 2 and Grand Theft Auto 3 on the PlayStation 2, while Duke Nukem Forever might finally put in an appearance on the PC. Don't laugh, it could happen.

Although it feels peculiar to watch Star Trek characters act with real emotion, Deep Space Nine has certainly improved since the war with the Dominion erupted in the final series. It's amazing to think that in a universe dominated by battleships and conflicting cultures it took this long for the writers to inject some actual grit into proceedings. Perhaps that's why it feels almost fake watching Commander Sisco admit that he no longer has the stomach for casualty reports, or the troops on AR-558 bonding as they defend the outpost from Jem Hadar. These aren't things I'm accustomed to watching as a Star Trek fan. Somewhat annoyingly though, just as soon as games developers are given something meaty to get their teeth into, they decide to stop filling in the blanks and produce a fairly bland, totally linear strategy romp through space by the numbers. Star Trek: Dominion Wars concerns the conflict between the bumbling allied forces of the Federation and Klingon Empire on one side and the ruthless, never-ending forces of Dominion-controlled Jem Hadar and their Cardassian allies on the other. Unfortunately it has been done in classic Star Trek style. In other words, you fly about the galaxy in big spotless space cruisers shooting the hell out of the enemy. There's no futility of war stuff, no painful losses, no character-based storyline worth keeping up with. It feels like we've gone back to square one. That said, the single player game is pretty enjoyable in its own right. You take on the burden of a fleet of up to six ships, which you select from a fleet of many more. Your credits can buy you one or two big ships and some really small ones, or a fleet of mediums. As you move through the game you get more and more credits, which fund the upgrade and/or purchase of new vessels. The other thing you need for your fleet is captains, and you have a decent selection of those to choose from. Captains come in various classes to fit the various ships, so you can't get snide little runts like Wesley Crusher to command towering destroyers, but you can get them to pilot smaller ships if you want to. Captains gain experience points the more missions they successfully complete, so it's worth keeping your ships in good nick throughout battle too, even if you are loaded with credits.

LB & B Associates has decided to adopt UbiSoft's Rogue Spear to help the US Department of Defence train military personnel in dealing with small-unit decision making on urban terrain. Estimates indicate that the game will be in use within six months. It is thought that the parties concerned were particularly impressed with Rogue Spear's game engine. Of course, legend has it that the US military once used Doom to train marines. Rumours that President Bush plays Counter-Strike in his spare time though are as-yet unconfirmed.

Back in the old days, when x86 processors from Intel led the way in terms of performance, honest AMD and crafty Cyrix used artificial rating systems to try and explain the difference in speed between their processors and those from Chipzilla. Since then, Cyrix have all but disappeared from the desktop processor market place, and AMD have been successfully battling Intel clock for clock. Now it appears AMD have plans to reintroduce the artificial rating system, perhaps concealing the actual speeds of the processors during the boot process of future PCs. Tom's Hardware is reporting that AMD may announce the Palomino 1.4GHz as a 'speed equivalent' to the Pentium IV 1.6GHz, called MODEL 1600. This is actually quite an honest comparison, but we doubt that the press and public will see it that way. Marketing hardware is difficult. Particularly if you're fighting a battle for clockspeeds. It's hard for instance, for Imagination Technologies to explain that the Kyro II graphics card is actually slower clock for clock than a GeForce MX, but somewhat faster in real terms. Trying to persuade punters that an AMD Athlon 1.4GHz can do a better job than an Intel Pentium IV 1.4Ghz is very difficult indeed. After all, the numbers are the same. It would seem that comparing a MODEL 1600 to a 1.6GHz P4 would be slightly less exciting than comparing a 1.4GHz Athlon - the same chip - to a 1.4GHz P4. The difference in performance deficits will be quite large, and will make marketing of the Athlon more difficult. That said, AMD are fighting against the promise of clockspeeds of 2.2GHz by the start of next year. The pressure of growing numbers is obviously playing on their minds.

Zax is the last of a dying breed, a resolutely two dimensional isometric action game in a world of first person shooters and polygonal bad guys. But thanks to a genuinely interesting storyline pushed along by a healthy supply of in-game dialogue and scripted sequences, it manages to be more than just another retro throwback.

A while ago NetGames UK cancelled their 0800 Internet dialup service. Could this, we speculated, be the beginning of the end? Apparently it was, because as forum posts over the last few days indicate, the entire core staff of the company has walked out, and although the servers remain, leagues and tournaments are being placed on hold pending further announcements from the company's managing director. The difficulty is that although voluntary admins remain in theoretical control of NGUK's gaming services, they only have game level administration rights, which limits them to kicking, banning, messaging players and very little else. Community admins have kept control of the IRC channels, but the big problem is that nobody is left who can physically access the servers, or even log in remotely. In the event of a patch (which given that a large number of the 239 NGUK game ports run Half-Life, Counter-Strike and Quake III is extremely likely), nothing can be done to bring the servers up to date, and they are destined to fall into disuse, clogging up the UK Master Servers until somebody decides to block them. The community spirit that surrounded NGUK was extraordinary. Although clearly floundering, the forums and IRC server were often buzzing with activity, painting a picture of a Wireplay or BarrysWorld-like fanbase. It's not all over though. Phillip O'Malley, one of the men who walked, seems confident that something good will come out of the service's failure. Speaking in a public IRC channel he said that the chaps running the service had walked "a while ago", before taking what some might consider a sideways swipe at competitors blueyonder and their complement of former Wireplay staffers, stating that "unlike other organisations our affairs remain silent until we deem the time is right." "Effectively guys consider that we have just surgically removed ourselves from NGUK," he continued. "It's not happened ultra recently as you have all probably guessed and we remained silent, but now it will get in the way of what we wish to do and so we've now made it public. And that's the story. I wish NGUK well, it just won't be serviced by us." After his comments were relayed to the NGUK forums, fans of the service and voluntary admins pledged their support for the future. At least until the service is overtaken by software updates. Update - After feedback from NGUK community members and admins, this article was updated to reflect the fact that the staff walked and were not pushed. Also, comments originally thought to have come from MD Andy Jones in fact originated with his former head of servers Philip O'Malley. We spoke to Jones' secretary, but she was unaware of any problems with the company. He has made himself unavailable for comment. It is expected that NGUK the company will be wound up fairly soon. Related Feature - NGUK drop 0800 service

Akaei have hopped on the ever-popular Mario Karts bandwagon with their own entry into the cartoon-motor-racing-starring-people-with-giant-heads genre - Toon Car. Due for release in October, the game will feature fourteen "zany" toon characters to choose from, including a "levitating Sikh" and a Sumo wrestler. There's also a range of "crazy" circuits including Morocco, Japan, Egypt, the Moon and Venus, all of which will naturally feature a healthy sprinkling of "wacky" jumps, bonuses, power-ups, weaponry and traps to navigate your way through. Throw in the traditional championship and single player modes, Gran Turismo-style licenses to earn and multiplayer split-screen or LAN action, garnish with 3D graphics and then simmer gently for another two months.

Things have been unusually hectic in Redmond this past week. Windows XP, the next iteration of the company's famous operating system, has reached the RTM (Release To Manufacture, in other words Gold) stage and on Sunday the company's press offices announced that Japanese giant Namco was to develop for its Xbox gaming console. Although the scale is very different, the Namco announcement is perhaps an even more important victory for Microsoft than meeting the Windows XP RTM milestone. Like the overzealous reports of the Xbox's delay, the Namco story has been swirling around in the rumour mill for several months and was even described by an American network as 'the worst kept secret' of the Xbox campaign so far. Japan has always been a troublesome area for Xbox though. Microsoft's PR war machine has synthesized an incredible buzz in Northern America and to a lesser extent Europe, but the Japanese market is very different. PlayStation 2 rules, and the GameCube (which launches there in just over a fortnight) will very likely clean up, especially with new Mario and Zelda games. When Microsoft's console hits Japan it will need killer apps, but not on Western terms; it will need Japanese killer apps, which are an entirely different proposition altogether. However, Namco is a company that knows how to make Japanese killer apps. Gran Turismo 3 is popular the world over, but gamers have still found a place for Namco's Ridge Racer series in their hearts, despite its shortcomings. Microsoft's Namco announcement claims that the next version of Ridge Racer will appear on Xbox. Joining RR will be Soul Calibur 2, which was party to an enthusiastic reception at Nintendo's Spaceworld event where it appeared on GameCube. Namco will also develop two Xbox exclusives; Dead to Rights, a Fugitive style 'Whodunnit 'cause I sure didn't' adventure game that pits you against a world convinced of your guilt, and a second unnamed action-adventure title. Microsoft and Namco have paraded their mutual satisfaction at the Xbox development deal. "Having Namco games available on Xbox is a huge victory for gamers around the world," Robbie Bach, Chief Xbox Officer said in a prepared statement. More than that Robbie, it's a way for you to get a foothold in the Japanese market. The question is, will this be a token gesture, or will Microsoft now make serious inroads into the Japanese market? Nintendo will doubtless try and hold firm. Related Feature - Even more Xbox nonsense

The Microsoft bashers have been having another field day this week, following the confirmation yesterday that the Xbox wouldn't be launched in Japan until February 22nd. The fact that this has been rumoured for months and Microsoft had already pushed back the release schedule in Japan by a few weeks earlier in the summer didn't seem to stop certain gaming websites, mainstream media and financial groups jumping on the bandwagon to predict a fiasco of 3DO-like proportions. Indeed, most Japanese analysts were completely unsurprised by this supposedly shocking announcement, saying that they hadn't expected to see the Xbox reach their shores until March anyway.

Counter-Strike : Condition Zero has had an exciting existence so far, going into development at Texas-based Rogue Entertainment for a few weeks before the departure of their president caused Valve to panic and take the game back in-house, sparking an acrimonious dispute between the two companies that spilled over on to websites and messageboards. Now the game is getting its third design team of the year, with Valve officially confirming that Gearbox will henceforth be handling "primary development" of the single player spin-off. Or at least until they die or Valve finds someone better.

Three core members of the team behind third person fantasy action game Severance have left Rebel Act to form their own studio, called Digital Legends. Xavier Carrillo (Severance's project director), Angel Cunado (lead programmer) and José Luis Vaello (lead designer) will be heading up the new studio, which is working on an as-yet nameless first person role-playing game. Apparently action will play a central part in the new game, which will be developed "for several platforms", and the setting is described as a "fantasy world that includes martial arts".

While many Americans and Europeans take computer games far too seriously, the Far East is a constant source of bizarre gaming news stories, from real-life gangsters demanding protection money in massively multiplayer role-playing games to professional Starcraft players earning six digit salaries and making regular TV appearances alongside footballers and Olympic athletes. One of the more disturbing stories we've seen coming out of Asia recently though was a report in the Electric New Paper about a Counter-Strike player in Thailand who dropped dead after an all-night gaming session.

The last serious LAN Party I attended was i5, a four day festival of gaming that took place in the roomy halls of the superb Newbury Racecourse buildings last summer. It seemed fitting that my return visit should be a year later to the day.