Console battle heats up as Microsoft Xbox One goes on sale

• Microsoft's (NASDAQ:MSFT) Xbox One computer games console has gone on sale in 13 countries, including the U.S., U.K. and France, prompting long queues outside consumer-electronics stores.
• The Xbox is going up against Sony's (NYSE:SNE) PlayStation 4, of which over 1M were sold within 24 hours of the device's North America launch last Friday.
• Retailers GameStop (NYSE:GME) and BestBuy (NYSE:BBY) have sold out of PS4s, with 2.3M GameStop customers waiting for the new players from Sony and Microsoft.