NOt alot, people make like a 3rd of what the west makes. sure the rich will by them right away, but that wont be a huge number.

It will look unbelieveable ... that is until the April sales numbers are released ... The fact is that the PS3 started off really strongly in North America and Japan and dropped off quickly and I anticipate the same thing will happen in Europe

HappySqurriel: There is not going to be April sales numbers released. We are going to guess, like we are guessing that xbox360 sold 3m+ in europe. Europe is very complicated :D

The PS3 launch seems to have bombed in Australia.... Sony said they had 20,000 pre-orders, but most stores were virtually deserted when they opened at midnight. The guy who bought the first PS3 in the country said he was shocked to be first in line when he only turned up after 9pm... http://www.smh.com.au/news/games/playstation-launch-is-a-muted-affair/2007/03/23/1174153291466.html The SMH is one of the most reputable news sources in the country

1 month later... the launch hype will still be around. and the big differance is Eu gets a good library of games right of the bat to maintain good sales.

So common sence prevails. Everyone has a preorder, they can show up when ever they want and pick it up. Its thursday... people have to work on Friday right... so most will pick up their stuff Friday after work.

Surely the same arguments applied to the US launch, yet we saw people lining for days to get one... I'm sure the PS3 will sell well here, it may even sell out or the buzz may increase during the day, I'm just pointing out the difference in launch hype between regions. BTW I don't own an xbox360 or a ps3 and don't plan on getting either one for a while yet.

thats what happens when supply is a hell of alot less then the demand.

Not necessarily ... One of the more common complaints about the existing pre-order system is that (since an individual can pre-order with little or no money down) a scalper can pre-order dozens of systems and effectively control the market ... Now, in the case where supply is far greater than demand scalpers tend not to pick up their pre-orders (if the deposit is low enough, say $10 per unit) or buy the system and immediately return it (if the deposit is high enough or they're forced to pre-purchase) ... On top of that, after the XBox 360 disaster, normal customers may attempt to pre-order multiple systems to ensure that they have a system on launch day ... I'm not saying that any of this is happening on a large scale for the PS3 launch, but at the same time I wouldn't be surprised to hear of stores with an abundance of unsold "pre-order" systems on Saturday ...

Im so not surprised (I live in Melbourne). Sony has been flogging the PS3 like anything for a month or so now (advertising everywhere), but the price is REALLY ridiculous. $1000 -- with no games. Its about $1500 for a couple of games, unit, etc. Also - although there are plenty of HDTV's here - almost ALL of them only do 720p. There are very few full 1080p devices on the market (and no one seems to really care about the difference). Plus the 360 has been out for over a year, and is doing really well here - and you can get a FULL pack (games and all), for about $700 - and that's really expensive as well. The original PS2 is doing really well - hit a sweet price point, and the games are very affordable. The Wii remains sold-out, and impossible to buy (without a pre-order). I work as a (mobile) games company, and I believe 1 (maybe 2) of our employees picked up a PS3 last night (at launch). Just about everyone has a PS2, and I think 6-8 employees have a Wii. Finally, no one gives a rats ar*e about BluRay here... even DVD's are overly expensive. Only the $15-$20 price point gets sales - $50 movies (its the SAME movie!), will not sell. Esp. when people don't own 1080p devices (I would say about 0.1% penetration for 1080p devices - maybe less). EDIT: The Aussie dollar was trading at US $0.81 yesterday (a 10yr record high). So $1500AU = $1215US. Work out the value there.