ROME - An Italian man who argued with his son over Sony PlayStation tactics was recovering in hospital on Monday after the teenager stabbed him in the neck with a 15-inch kitchen knife, police and hospital officials said.

The man, identified as Fabrizio R., suffered a deep cut to the throat after his 16-year-old son, Mario, attacked him during an argument on Sunday over the soccer video game FIFA 2009.

Police said the argument broke out when the 46-year-old storekeeper offered his son advice on tactics to improve his play, and then turned the television off in response to his son's behavior.

Fetching a knife from the kitchen, Mario stabbed his father in the neck before returning to clean the weapon at the kitchen sink in front of his mother and leaving it to dry on the draining-board. Forty-six year-old housewife Monica B,. told Italian daily Il Corriere della Sera that she had no idea what had happened until her husband stumbled into the room, clutching his throat.

"I saw Mario come back into the room, he seemed calm, he went to the sink and I noticed him washing a knife," Monica told the newspaper. "Then my husband came into the room with a hand round his neck, dripping blood."

The teenager shut himself in his bedroom after the attack and made no attempt to resist arrest, police said.

The game had been given to Mario a few days earlier, as a birthday present.

"Mario is obsessed. He's forever playing on his PlayStation, and we bought him FIFA 2009 because we didn't want him playing violent games," his mother told Il Corriere.


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That is exactly the reason why my mum let my brother get Winning Eleven - to stop him from getting more violent games. He's all about Grand Theft Auto and other first person shooter games. Luckily I haven't lectured him on how to improve his play.