And if Microsoft Xbox boss Don Mattrick wants to back up the claim he made last week - that "Xbox 360 will sell more consoles worldwide this generation than PlayStation 3" - he'll have to win in Europe.
Billy Pidgeon, a longtime games-industry analyst with IDC, set the stage for this part of the console battle when he said in a recent interview: "The U.S. is going as expected. Sure, there's still market share to be decided over the long run, but before, in previous cycles, you had to wait until North America and Japan had matured a bit before you would go whole-hog into Europe.
"But now, because of economic issues like the euro, but more so because ... the [game] launches, so far, have been worldwide, the story that people aren't seeing is the struggle for market share in Europe
