After what seems like about a year of grey, overcast skies, Spring has suddenly sprung in the UK, bringing with it a rash of football in the park (jumpers for goalposts, naturally), long evenings in the beer garden and unfeasibly small items of clothing all round. You won't find us complaining, although the thongs are beginning to chafe.

But Microsoft's marketing managers may be a tad annoyed; this good weather has come just a few weeks after the launch of the X-Box gaming console. Sunshine? In April? In the UK? How is that possible? March seemed like the perfect time to launch a new console; punters would have the entire British Summer stuck indoors because of the rain, so they'd be a captive audience. Perhaps the heat generated by the manufacture and delivery of all those machines has contributed to global warming and brought our traditional two weeks of sunshine forward a few months.

New consoles and big new games are traditionally launched at the end of the Summer, as the nights draw in. The logic goes that shorter days means longer game-playing time, so more games and consoles are sold. And it also gets the brand established for Christmas, when little angels get their just desserts. So Microsoft was about six months out of step, presumably due to manufacturing delays.

The X-Box is undoubtedly good (we've reviewed one of the first games here), but it can't compete with the lure of some real sunshine after months of cloud. Even the most square-eyed and slack-jawed gamers (i.e. us) are switching off the computers at the end of the working day and getting outside to watch the... ahem... world go by.

Things will probably be back to normal within a week or so, but for the moment the choice is Play More or Get Out More. No contest.