British grocer Tesco claimed today it has 2500 PlayStation 2s in store and ready to sell tomorrow - unlike almost every other retailer.

The UK's main retailers are still believed to be fighting over what's left of the 165,000 units Sony shipped into the country on the console's launch late last month.

Tesco, on the other hand, claims to have scored a stack of consoles - a "major coup" - from a "secret location" in Northern Europe - which, we reckon, is a covert reference to... er... Sony's warehouse in Aylesbury.

Heck, the way Tesco tells it, you'd think the company had sent an elite force of commando shelf-stackers - 'Hello, my name's Kevin. The baked beans are now in row 26, sir. Watch out for that Uzi fire, Trace...' - in a daring raid to bring back consoles straight out of The Guns of Navarone or Operation Crossbow.

Wherever the machines have come from, we doubt very much that they've been spirited into the country under Sony's nose, as Tesco would have us believe. More likely Tesco have been hanging on to them until demand reached its peak.

The machines will go on sale tomorrow at stores in Watford, Peterborough, Cardiff, Newcastle and Inverness. ®

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