For the video game industry, the game is either over, or just begun -- depending on whether you listen to the No. 1 player or the two challengers battling to control a share of the booming $20 billion industry. Something of a war of words was underway as market-leader Sony Corp. stalwart Nintendo Co. Ltd. and upstart Microsoft Corp. jostled for pride of place in the media spotlight trained on the industry's major trade show, the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles. Sony, which has already sold some 30 million of its PlayStation 2 consoles, took an early shot at rivals, declaring victory in a battle most analysts expect to rage for years. "Officially, the console wars are over," Kaz Hirai, the president of Sony Computer Entertainment of America, said on Tuesday, to the cheers of a packed crowd at a movie studio in downtown Los Angeles.
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