The Euro will become legal tender in Belgium, Germany, Greece, Spain, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Austria, Portugal and Finland at twelve o'clock tonight. As the Euro is quickly approaching, we ask the question: what will the Euro mean for gaming?

Europe is always seen as the poor relation to America and Japan. We get all our gaming products after these two nations, and along with Australia and New Zealand we are treated with less respect. Remember the N64? It was released in Europe and down under well after its successful American launch and a not-so-successful Japanese release. Why is Europe treated so badly?

For a start we have many different languages, cultures and tastes. The �ber corporations such as Sony and the smaller, yet perfectly formed Nintendo see Europe as a tough market to crack. We buy less gaming products than Japan and America and so are seen as a difficult and less important market to conquer. Advertising is always a problem : with so many different languages and tastes corporations have to spend more money on creating different ads for each country (or in Nintendo's case with the N64 simply 'don't bother').

Another aspect of why Europe is seen as such a difficult market is the currency factor - yet this all about to change with the launch of the European single currency. The Euro will become the currency of all the EU nations at midnight tonight (bar Denmark, Great Britain and Sweden), and so effectively one 'burden' of the European market is almost eliminated. Gaming corporations usually have to set one price for the whole of Europe anyway, this makes their profits from one nation differ to another (with different taxes etc). Ok, so the taxes remain, but the new currency definitely makes Europe a more inticing market to takle.

The single currency will create more competition - for example, if a French gamer sees a console priced less in a German store than in one in his home country, the Euro would make it easier for that gamer to purchase his console across the border (without the hassle of exchanging money for a cost). The new currency will allow many more possibilities to the European gamer in the future.