Sources within Microsoft are becoming increasingly confident that PS3 will not meet a Spring "07 launch in Europe -- and may not even meet a Christmas "06 launch in the US. British trade journal MCV reports Xbox"s UK chief Neil Thompson, "I"d be happy to compete whenever they turn up, but I wouldn"t be surprised if that"s not until spring "07. If they hit Christmas "06 (in Europe) then maybe it"ll be a very thin launch; a launch in name only."

In a series of strong worded assaults against PS3 from Microsoft, it appears that the US tech giant is confident in getting at least two full holiday seasons over Sony. Said Robbie Bach, Xbox"s global chief "Whatever they [Sony] do, they"re going to be chasing us for a long, long time." And J. Allard (Microsoft Corporate Vice President, and XNA Chief Architect) boasts "There"s a big gap between what Sony claims and what they"ve shown. They"ll need an eight hour press conference pretty soon just to give people confidence in that spring "06 date they"ve mentioned," and "There"s a lot of stuff they just don"t have in place yet. They make nice movies though."

So far, Sony has shown no response to the verbal battering from Microsoft. Here"s to hoping they"ll lay a Seattle-sized smackdown on the boys from Redmond sometime soon.