For Sony, it was a chance, after a series of embarrassing mistakes, to prove that PlayStation still deserves to dominate the video games market.

What the machine actually delivered was a dazzling array of graphics. The dozen games on show yesterday have reached such sophistication that eyelashes, blades of grass and droplets of water can be animated individually.

But fans and analysts were united in the view that the PS3, despite the superiority of its technology, has failed to demonstrate its “wow” factor.

It will be an expensive, complicated machine, and must make early gains before Christmas to win over the Japanese market, where it will be sold for 50,000 yen (£226). Britain will not get any PS3s until March.

Fans criticised a lack of innovation. The controller was almost exactly the same as the one that came with the original PlayStation and PS2.

It also relies heavily on recycled hits. The games set to be released with the machine bear tell-tale “more of the same” titles such as Everybody’s Golf 5, Virtual Fighter 5 and Ridge Racer 7.

As a result, industry observers have tipped Nintendo as the likely victor in the console war.

Its new machine, the Wii, features a revolutionary motion-sensitive controller. It will cost 25,000 yen in Japan and £179 in Britain.

The new sword-fighting game Bleach, where players swish the controller around the room and their actions are mimicked by armour-clad knights on the screen, may convert newcomers to Wii.

Other titles being tipped by include Bladestorm, based on the 100 Years’ War; Coded Arms Assault, a futuristic shooting game set in Tokyo; Elebits, a bizarre game where players control a swarm of tiny egg-shaped creatures with bolts of electricity as they attempt to tidy the room; and Dead Rising, an unremittingly gory title for the Xbox 360.

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