Electronic Art’s international publishing boss Gerhard Florin has told Reuters that Europe will be the determining factor in the battle between Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft for next-gen console supremacy.

“I believe the biggest fight will be in Europe. Whoever wins the hardware war in Europe most likely will be the overall winner,” he stated.

Florin went on to add that raw graphical horsepower is no longer as important to gaming as it once was, and that it was the overall quality of the gaming experience that was rising to the forefront.

“Everybody gets carried away with the technology,” he added. “When the technology gets more usable then the story tellers get more to the forefront.

”If new consumers come in, they might not react to new hardware in the same way as the core gamers who go for bits and bytes and have to have the latest processor power,"