Advance orders for Sony's highly anticipated PlayStation 3 console have broken all records, with high street stalwart Woolworths revealing it has been taking one order every 20 seconds during the past week. The state-of-the-art PlayStation 3 will go head-to-head with Microsoft's Xbox 360 when it hits the shops on March 23 and Woolies, one of the first stores to accept pre-orders, has admitted it has been staggered by the demand. Gerry Berkley, Woolworths' head of games, said, "It's the hottest gaming system since the PS2 launched in 2000 - demand will outstrip supply." With a retail price of £425, the 60Gb PlayStation 3 costs £125 more in the UK than in the US, but this has failed to deter those determined to try out Sony's latest dream machine.

The PS3 will be a big hit here .There are literally millions of people waiting for this machine to come out .If Sony could release 2 million instead of 1 it would do itself a great favour .

" Retailers reporting "overwhelming demand" - Sony Online retailer Play.com is taking six times more pre-orders than it received for PlayStation 3 than Xbox 360 - and 15 times more than the Nintendo Wii. That's according to head of games Gian Luzio, who told GamesIndustry.biz that PS3 is "the most pre-ordered console yet" for Play. The retailer is offering a GBP 524.99 bundle which includes first-party titles MotorStorm, Resistance: Fall of Man and Genji. Play also ran pre-order schemes for the Wii and Xbox 360, but some customers were left disappointed when they failed to receive their consoles on day one. "We underestimated the demand and we were very disappointed that we could not fulfil all pre-orders due to stock shortages," admitted Luzio. However, Play has pledged to deliver all pre-ordered PS3 units on launch day, with Luzio stating, "We have taken the necessary steps to ensure that customers will only be able to pre-order the system up until Play's allocation has been reached. "We will always want more consoles to satisfy customer demand, however, we are satisfied that Sony are doing all they can to fulfil demand," he added. Luzio went on to say that the inclusion of a Blu-ray player in the PlayStation 3 will have a "massive impact" on the retailer's business. "Figures from the US show that Blu-ray movie sales are outselling HD-DVD by a factor of 2:1 since the launch of PS3 and we have similar sales expectations. "In addition to the games and movie growth we expect to see a large increase in the sales of 1080p TVs to make full use of the PS3's superior resolution," he concluded. It's not just Play which is seeing healthy pre-orders for PS3, according to Sony. A spokesperson told GI.biz, "With an unprecedented day one shipment of 1 million machines into Europe and a software catalogue of over 30 titles available at launch, retailer feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. "Woolworths, Amazon and Play, to name a few, are reporting record breaking pre-orders and an overwhelming demand for PS3." The PlayStation 3 will launch in Europe on March 23, priced at GBP 425 / EUR 599 for the 60GB model. " http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=22810 http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/bestsellers/videogames/ref=sv_vg_h__3/026-4952782-7724427

so i guess europeans learned the trend to preorder the ps3, then jack up the price to resell to those unfortunate ones who couldn't get one. hell if i was in europe, i'd preorder one just to resell too!

Yeah and flood ebay so those after the initial rush of sales it becomes pretty much difficult to make a purchase. Complain... then return it to a store. Where someone else will purchase it. Hey.... we had a brilliant outcome in the US with that one.

yeah, "overwhelming demand"... "15 times more than Wii".... this explains why PS3 is still widely available on both amazon.co.uk and play.com after TWO DAYS when Wii preorders sold out in something like TEN MINUTES. By the way, Wii is still sold out on both amazon and play...

Until some actual numbers are put out, then all the hyperbole is meaningless. It will sell out at launch, as does every system. What happens 3-4 months down the road will tell us more about whether or not it will become #1 in Europe. Sony has needed some good news, maybe Europe will finally give it to them, then again, maybe not.

On The Subject of Woolies selling 1 every 20 seconds... If you actually break that down... 3 a minute, 180 an hour, 1800 roughly a day, 54000 over the next month 54000/800 (800 Woolworth Stores in UK) = 67 per store So Each Store is taking roughly 2 or 3 pre orders a day .... not quite the mad pre order frenzy it first sounds like But even 67 pre orders per store sounds too good to be true.....

after being at this site for a while I finally decided to sign up... and all this time I have been noticing that many of you really are bias against Sony. Most of you here have a Wii and seem to to hold it in high regards and I resepect that, but damn can't you guys chill out on Sony. what have they done so wrong really? the only problem I see with the PS3 is it's price (rumble means nothing to me). Great games for it are already out, and even greater games are on the horizon so what is all the negativity? did have an awesome time playing the PS2? what makes you think things will change? here is some great news for Sony and all most of you can do is put it down as meaningless. geez you may hate Sony, but at least acknowledge when they seem to be doing something right. quit being so bitter. this is how I feel so take it or leave it. P.S>. i didn't know how to post normally so i just replied to some1.

Honestly I still think Sony is short on good exclusives, there isn't that many great exclusives yet, in my opinion the only one is Resistance, and I'm not a shooter fan, so it's awfully expensive for that one game, plus it's really only had bad news since launch, how many amazing new exclusives been anounced since launch? None that I know of, in fact many of it's exclusives have been moved to the 360 too, and alot of the big titles have been pushed back. So I can understand alot of the negativity for it's price tag. With that said I'm sure it'll be fine once more good stuff releases more people will purchase one, and take to Sony in this gen. And if they don't then they'll eventually become the underdog and people will defend them on that basis. Otherwise I think Kwaad might actually be the reason people tend to knock it. I'm on another forum that talks tv shows and there is three people that worship Veronica Mars and tell everyone how it's the best show ever, and how they should keep it on even with poor ratings(btw I watch the show so I'm not against what their saying.) but because of the overly ambitious vocal support many people bash it every chance they get on that site. I believe the same is happening here.