March 16^th, 2002 (12:00am) - By Deborah Bonello

The launch of Microsoft’s much-hyped video games console Xbox got off to a strong start yesterday when the entertainment system went on sale at retailers throughout the UK and outran Sony Playstation 2’s firstly monthly sales in one night.

According to figures from the high street retailer Virgin Megastore, it sold more Xbox consoles in Glasgow during the first night of sales than its rival PS2 did in its first month, despite the retailing price of the Xbox being £100 higher at £300.

HMV also said that sales of Xbox on its launch day were "certainly meeting expectations, and we are on target to sell as planned."

Virgin said that demand for the Xbox was so high that stores opened at midnight in London, Glasgow, Dublin, Manchester and Birmingham yesterday to serve people who had been queuing outside the stores hours before opening time.

Virgin sold over 100 Xbox consoles at each of its locations on Xbox’s launch night, and its store in Oxford Street sold 250 during the launch night and a further 70 before lunchtime that day.

The launch of Xbox has been heavily marketed by Microsoft, which kicked off a TV ad campaign last week through BBH. An online viral marketing campaign for the system has been running for several weeks.

Microsoft has come under fire for some of its marketing initiatives. The computer giant has been accused of giving preference to its own in-house computer games and software above those of its competitors.

Playstation 2 is expected to present Xbox with stiff competition, and Microsoft has received a number of complaints following the launch of Xbox in Japan in November that the console scratches DVDs and CDs.