Microsoft is a loveable, caring company and would never try to sabotage its competitors (ignore that Judge Jackson - he's just bitter). Unless of course the company owns the market-leading product in a market MS has just entered.

What are we talking about? PlayStation 2. The Sun ran a story on its front page this morning about loads of PlayStation 2s going wrong. It's also going to be on that god-awful, researched-while-on-the-toilet TV programme Watchdog tonight.

We covered it too. It's not actually that big a problem - 5,000 complaints comes out to about three per cent of consoles sold. But it's still a story.

Microsoft obviously thought so. Even though the bleedin' heavy Xbox won't be out in Europe until the start of next year, any negative publicity against PlayStation would be useful. Perhaps that's why it has been calling journalists all day, making sure they saw the story. Just maybe. ®

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