Recently, South Koreans were shaken when a 28-year-old man died of heart failure after 50 unbroken hours of online gaming, US legislators moved to regulate video games for excessive violence and the Chinese government has said it would introduce restrictions on how long players could spend online in order to prevent addiction.

In the next three months, a new generation of games consoles will be introduced, designed to link up to large high-definition television screens and, with music and DVD-playing capabilities, to become home entertainment centres for living rooms around the world.