Of course the proof of the pudding is in the eating and time will only tell, but it seems to me that Microsoft have definitely stolen a march over Sony with the Xbox 360.

Sounds like they are gettin pretty desperate to me, having to give them away to get a market share..

I don't think it's desperation at all. I think it's a smart marketing tactic to get Xbox 360 established before Playstation 3 arrives.

Or it could simply be a "get 6 months of glory" before PS3 trounces it...

6 months of glory huh...PS3 is 1-1.5 years away...launch either end of 2006 or early 2007. By then the 360 will be well established...lets see sony "trounce" the xbox, I guess only time will tell...tell me what you think in 1.5 years when it comes out. ;)

Xbox360 is only getting to market quicker, because they have left all the good stuff out to get that Christmas $$$. I hope Sony realise this, and capitalise on it by making PS3 "all inclusive".

What are you talking about? Sony has been dropping PS3 features left and right (included hard drive, router capability... what's next?). Everybody knows what to expect in the Xbox package now. I haven't a clue what will finally ship on the PS3 after they finish stripping out features.

What "good stuff" are they leaving out?? They didn't leave the hard drive out...they did give you the option of purchasing it without the hard drive, but that's still in there. other then that...oh yea, that's the "good stuff" that they "left out" right?

lol...sony doesn't even know what they'll put in the ps3, developers don't even know what to make of those cell processors.

Well, wireless was left out, the HDD is now optional (meaning almost no games will support it). The graphics hardware has be reported to have been downgraded, as the time to launch was shorted than originally planned.

PS3 is reported to have HDD, and a router was never planned.

What...wireless networking? Get a wireless card.

Hard drive won't be supported? This has been argued to death, with you even, on previous articles, I won't try to convince you anymore.

Graphics hardware downgraded? What was the original spec? Didn't sony downgrade the cell chip about 20 times??

PS3 is a year and a half away...tell me about "reported" features in the months before it's release, not years.

microsoft are probably adding drugs for you to buy more Mountain Dew, Pepsi and Sierra Mist and then to love them... some sort or drug to make you think they rock so when they run for president you will vote for them lol

You know how many MILLIONS of bottles of Pepsi, Sierra Mist, and Moutain Dew are purchased in 9 weeks?

Don't go buying extra pepsi because of this. You'd have better luck getting struck by lightning.... 3 times in a row.

You can't look at it as how many millions will be purchased. They are giving one away every 10 minutes. So they may sell 10,000 in ten minutes but if only 1,000 people actually log on and enter, that's a pretty damn good chance.

At least no one can ever say they couldn't give them away!

well I already buy a Pepsi almost every day so I guess I'll give this a shot. I usually could careless about the promo's going on, but this one I'll take a stab at.

That's why it's called a promotion. They're free to promote it wherever they want to. They didn't have to do it in the first place....so I don't think anyone's complaining.

Ermm, is someone going to bother mentioning that this promotion only applies to a mere 5% of the world please...

You mean the part of the world where Microsoft is located? Duh...

lol you mean the US...where MS is LOCATED?? That's the most retarted comment I've heard in my life. Why bother mentioning that...that's kind of a given.

microsoft is everywhere :)

Yeah, most US residents don't even realise there is a world 'outside'. :P

Serious fanboy, Niro?

lol..."serious fanboy"? What are you...12 years old?? You're one of those guys that soon as they hear someone say something good about a product you don't like you yell "fanboy" right? I love your type you always seem to think you're a c00l 3l1t1$t when you say the word "fanboy". It's the new internet craze amongst teens. It's kinda funny actually...

but hey, I'm not complaining that they don't have cave giveaway contests in the US just because they have them in afghanistan...and I don't expect afghanistan to care about the contests american companies have in america.

Since you seem to be so jealous of other countries, why don't you go to japan and complain about all the things they have that you don't get. I hear in africa they're holding some kind of contest to see who can go the longest without getting HIV, I believe they're giving away hats made ot of leaves...you should check that out too, they don't include other countries in it...I want one of those hats too.

Not really an retarded comment, it sounds like you have problems reading and understanding. if you re-read it was a comment on this crappy article.

MS may be U.S, but Betanews has an international audience, so the article should have stated it was aimed at all small percentage of Betanews audience.

According to you, anything that's not pro PS3 or anti MS is a crappy article, your arguments are always biased and pretty much meaningless anyway.