At around 11am on Thursday in Tokyo, as Kazuo Hirai of Sony Computer Entertainment was presenting his company’s strategy to business partners and the press, a buzz went around the room. The news arriving by BlackBerry and laptop was that Nintendo, Sony’s biggest rival, had cut the price of its Wii console from $250 to $200.

The timing was mischievous, but that Nintendo felt the need for a price cut – having consistently argued that attractive and original games were a better way to sell consoles – is a sign of just how far Sony and Microsoft have closed the gap on the Wii since it launched to instant success in 2006.