Video game fans will mark the UK launch of Microsoft's Xbox console by taking the day off work, according to a survey.

A poll of 3,000 people who pre-ordered an Xbox at online shop Amazon.co.uk found three quarters were planning to stay at home on Thursday with their new console.

"We didn't envisage just how many people would skive off work," Amazon's head of video games Chris Harris said in a statement.

The survey comes as Microsoft launches its first games console in a blaze of publicity across the UK.

Broadcaster Jonathan Ross and Virgin Entertainment Group chief Richard Branson were at one of 300 stores which opened at midnight.

Microsoft's Xbox, which will cost 300 pounds in the UK, was first launched in the U.S. last November and three months later in Japan.

The computer giant hopes to loosen Sony's tight grip on the UK video games market, worth an estimated 1.6 billion pounds a year.

Microsoft is marketing the Xbox as the world's most powerful console and says its games and graphics are more advanced than the bestselling Sony PlayStation 2, which costs about 200 pounds in the UK.

"In about five to 10 years time, people will look back at this time as the start of the golden age of gaming," Microsoft's UK marketing manager Richard Teversham told Reuters on Wednesday.

The Xbox will launch with 20 games, costing 45 pounds each, Microsoft said.

Microsoft declined to give predicted sales figures or say how many consoles had been shipped to the UK.

Britain's biggest high street electrical retailer Dixons said it expected to sell up to 25,000 Xbox consoles in the first three weeks at its 320 UK stores.

Date: 2002-03-14

Posted by: Ross

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