Following this, it’s amazing where you can find Microsoft adverts nowadays. For example on the back of a Future Publishing title here in the UK. But not an XBox 360 magazine like you might expect, but in fact on the back page of PSM3 magazine. As can be seen here, Microsoft obviously bought a page of advertising space on the magazine just to rub PS3 owners noses in it (that shouldn’t take long given the non-appearance of the console here in the UK and the rest of Europe yet of course!). As the guys at XBox360 fnaboy say, perhaps PS3 fans should just give in and buy and XBox 360 and Gears of War anyway…

Well I have to admit that I think it’s a master stroke from Microsoft. I also think that they are perfectly justified in doing it. After all Gold members do pay £40 a year for the service (an amount I don’t mind paying at all) and for this it’s great to think that Microsoft are going to give me some perks. As mentioned in the BGB article, Sony will be offering a single-tier online service that includes game demos for free. However, how many customers would Sony get for a premium online service if they charged £40 a year on top of the cost of the console? Very few I would guess. Lets face it, at £40 a year there’s a lot of year’s of subscription on XBox Live compared to a free service on the PS3 before you’ve spent the same amount.

So what should these disgruntled Silver members do? Well I guess there are a few options. They can always go and buy a PS3 and get the free service there (although then missing out on a Gears of War trailer won’t affect them will it???!!). They could upgrade to Gold and fork out £40 a year for the privilige, or they can remain on Silver, wait the extra week for stuff and become more frustrated everytime a new piece of content is released to the Gold members first. Me personally? I’d not be without my Gold membership, and I’ll enjoy the perks that come with it…

News then broke yesterday on Joystiq (here) that the number of consoles available in Japan on launch day has been cut by 20%. There is no word as to whether North America will face a similar 20% cut in consoles available. This follows on the back of the news not so long ago that the Playstation 3 will not be available in Europe until 2007. And given that Sony no longer views importing a console as a viable option (you only have to look at Lik Sang’s fate to see that) and you really have to wonder what Sony are playing at.

Surely they knew that there would be shortages in supply and that they would never meet the demand. But at what point should Sony cut their losses and just move the launch of the console back globally? Microsoft have shown that a launch in the 3 major gaming territories in 2 weeks is possible (and yes I remember how short in supply the 360′s were at launch, but at least they were there). I also have no doubt that Nintendo will manage a global launch with the Wii, and that Wii’s will be available “on the shelf” before Christmas. I guess this will be a big test of Sony’s bullish attitude of “we can do what we want” and that Nintendo and Microsoft are going to share the majority of the Christmas sales…