Microsoft welcomes PS3 to console party

The PlayStation 3's unfashionably late arrival to the next-gen console party has been welcomed by Microsoft. Whether the Redmond company knew about it or not, Xbox 360 fans had the last laugh at the London launch of the PS3 last night.

There were 50 people queuing into the early hours at the official London launch at the Virgin Megastore on Oxford street. And before they were shockingly all given free 46-inch flatscreen televisions , they had to stand out in the bitter British weather.

That is, until some nice guys turned up with some free camping chairs for all the PS3 fans to sit on. On the back of the directors-style chairs was the line "Shouldn't have kept you waiting" and the URL www.shkyw.com .

It was not until the grateful sitters got home via their free taxi rides that they realised they had been the victims of a rather amusing prank.

Following the chair URLs takes you to a site with a simple flash animation saying, "Xbox 360 welcomes PS3 to the next generation. Sony... You're late! Let the games begin."

And this wasn't the only amusing Microsoft story to emerge in the early hours of the morning. Our sister site CVG received a nice little package from Microsoft : £146 worth of lager.

£146 is the difference between the cost of an Xbox 360 Premium console and the £425 PlayStation 3. So to demonstrate what that extra money could otherwise be spent on, Microsoft sent the CVG guys 168 cans of Fosters.

James Rivington

James was part of the TechRadar editorial team for eight years up until 2015 and now works in a senior position for TR's parent company Future. An experienced Content Director with a demonstrated history of working in the media production industry. Skilled in Search Engine Optimization (SEO), E-commerce Optimization, Journalism, Digital Marketing, and Social Media. James can do it all.