of course this is just my impression, but this is not only due to the fact that i don't know anybody who owns one, but also because there is no talk about it, wether in the media nor from people that i know. but important for me is that i know quite a lot of people who own a xbox, and nobody of them bought an x360. dead console is probably exagerated, but i assume that it sells worse then gc and xbox did.

This is OT, i know, but you should define what you mean by Europe and new Europe. Looks like Europe in this case means European countries, which are "west" by welfare and politically. You forgot Finland from the list, and Norway isn't ETA-country nor EU (you mentioned Switzerland as ETA, but not EU [i assume that you mean by UE the European Union]). Ex Eastern block countries have such low welfare, that theyre not buying much consoles, even that some of them are quite populated. About PS3 prebooking, here at Finland (atleast the stores i know) did not take any prebooking fee. So its possible, that many of those, who prebooked, leave the console to the store. By the way, some stores in Italy started selling PS3 at wednesday... But Italy is "the promised land of the PS". It looks like PS3 got a decent start in Europe, good for them, but i think that sales freezes by april. Even in Europe people are not that stupid that they pay the price nearly 700€ (its 670-690€ here) from a console. OK, the PS2 was sold in Finland at start for 500€, and people still bought it. But the reports i've seen from Finland tells that PS3 is not a blockbuster here either. Oh, and compared to Wii... I have seen Wii once in a store, 20.1 there was 8 pcs at the store, and i bought mine then. :) After that day haven't seen any, so its still sold out here.

I'm from the UK and purely based on from the talk I've been hearing from the friends... (which admittedly isn't a perfect cross-section of the community) I doubt the PS3 will sell that well after the first flood of pre-orders and early buyers. Most gamers I talk to seem interested in it but are put off by the high-price tag. A lot of people are just waiting for the Xbox360 to drop in price again to buy it. Everyone seems very impressed by the Wii and several people who played mine decided to buy one too (and more are still looking) and alot of those are casual.

Annoying like hell, couldn't write without caps and lot of dots.

Small update. Was in town (Gothenburg Swedens secons largest city) to buy some other stuff. Went into EBgames and found Baten Kaitos (yes!) for a cheap price. Asked about the Wii got info that soon all preorder would be meet. He asked me if I didn't want a PS3 instead I asked isn't they sold out Answer: No, everybody still have stock

Well like I've said in another topic, PS3 is available within the Netherlands, famous online stores such as dimensionplus, wehkamp, bol.com, bart smit for example have the console in stock, so not sold out in Holland, sorry... also I've seen on UK websites such as Play.com and Amazon.co.uk that the console is available so I guess not sold out either. News reports said that the launch in Holland was quiet though kind of succesful.

One of the biggest online-stores in Poland - Ultima - PS3 - sold out status. PlayStation 3 - wersja z 60 HDD - druga dostawa! - Playstation 3 - version with 60 GB HDD - second shipment ! PS3 - First shipment sold out.

Great

I think your sarcasm is unnecessary. It's just an info. I don't think it's worse than yours.

Looking around in stores in my city (in the Netherlands) today confirms that quite a lot of PS3 are still available. (yet Wii's were nowhere to be found)