Ah, everyone loves a Mexican standoff. This three way battle between the great gaming juggernauts has raged on for some years now, each struggling to get the upper hand. I figured I'd chart their progress as I see it, with the use of this handy chart I found lying around:

Microsoft: Once a bit of a laughing stock, MS have now climbed to the top of the pile. Their next generation console is out way before the others and is selling well despite the absense of any Master-Chief related attractions. The huge financial and marketing clout of Microsoft can't hurt when its all about the market share of your consoles. Microsoft has managed to capture valuable exclusive titles for its consoles and buy highly respected game development companies. Recent news that the XBox 360 will have the ever-popular Pro Evolution Soccer and Fifa titles exclusively for the next year is a further boost.

Sony: News that Sony's upcoming next generation console, the Playstation 3, will retail initially for between $499 and $599 (and only the high end system initially at £425 in the UK) depending on the hard drive size was a real shock. Despite the powerful brand name and popularity of the Playstation in the past decade, the PS3 is going to be a lot more expensive than its competitors, while games for the console may also prove more costly. The inclusion of a Blu-ray drive is a possible strong selling point considering the cost of a stand alone player right now, although I imagine that this won't be such a strong selling point if Blue-ray loses out to HD-DVD.

Nintendo: Nintendo had a great E3, there is a great deal of interest in its revolutionary new control system and the next installments of legendary franchises like The Legend of Zelda and Mario. But their upcoming console has a stupid name. Maybe all publicity is good publicity but from where I stand Nintendo took a real pummeling after announcing that the pretty cool 'Revolution' name was merely a placeholder for its final, well thought out name: Wii. All the jokes have already been made, suffice it to say that it seems Nintendo have shot themselves in the foot despite showing some amazing innovation as always. The handheld Nintendo DS continues to promote new ideas from game developers and is generally great.