UK PS3 Pre-Orders a Record Breaker or Not?

[wraggster]

Digital Spy is reporting that pre-orders for the Playstation 3 in the UK has "broken all records, with high street stalwart Woolworths revealing it has been taking one order every 20 seconds during the past week."

The head of games for the retailer called the console the hottest gaming system since the PS2.

But then you look at Charles Arthur's anecdotal story of PS3 sales in the UK for the Guardian's Gamesblog.

At a local games shop there's a notice suggesting people pre-order their PS3 before March 29, when.. you know.
So how's business, I asked the bloke behind the counter? What sort of interest is there in the PS3 compared to the Xbox 360 and Wii?

Very low, he replied: with, what, six weeks to go before the launch, half their pre-allocation had not been taken up. (Of course you could go glass-half-full and say half had been.) That compared to pretty much all taken up for the Xbox 360 a year ago, and huge over-demand for the Wii before last Christmas.

So what sort of ratio of demand was there between the PS3, Wii and Xbox 360? Demand for the Wii was more than 10x greater than for the PS3, he said, and had been about 5x that of the Xbox. And he personally didn't think any of the PS3 launch games were worth the bother. "Sony has been promising this for two years and people have just got bored with it," he suggested.

So which is it? Are UK gamers fevered over or bored with the PS3 launch, or is it a bit of both with a dash of eBay grey market boosting the early demand?

via kotaku

[Shrygue]

This is interesting to know. Maybe I should think of pre-odering the PS3 fast soon before all reservation slots are taken.

[Accordion]

without the allocation figures for stores preorder claims mean nothing.

[muffinman]

i got mine down. Ps3 perorders for game only opened yesterday and they didnt send me an email. So i doubt no one knows .

that is if that is your local game store.

[Xiofire]

Game are robbing b*****ds with the PS3. I put my name down on the email alert list, and they send me one today saying pre-order now, with 3 games! Yew can only buy bundles! Each with 3 games, coming to about £565. I have now preordered with argos, meaning i wont get it for launch, but probably about a month after.
-Xiofire

[muffinman]

yeah i just checked my email. I just got one lol.

Lucky i did it with my local import store garanteed day 1 console.

Anyways if you know the workers in game a bit or just start up a conversation with them theyll put you down for console only. They've done it for me for every console i've got there even though they always have bundles.

[Shrygue]

GAME only accepts PS3 pre-orders in bundles at £565? Total rip-offs! I was thinking to go there and reserve one but then again you wind up paying a big deposit for it.

[steve-b]

I got mine ordered from woolworths...1 ps3 and 1 game. not so bad.

ROLL ON MARCH!!

[cal6n]

Personally, I wouldn't trust a word that Charles Arthur writes. Over the years, he has proven himself to be one of the worst Microsoft apologists in the UK media. Quite how he holds down a job at a quality paper like the Guardian, we can only guess. It's probably because the Guardian were comparatively quick off the mark regarding the inclusion of a computer section and Microsoft managed to get their mole in there early.

[Darksaviour69]

Game are robbing b*****ds with the PS3. I put my name down on the email alert list, and they send me one today saying pre-order now, with 3 games! Yew can only buy bundles! Each with 3 games, coming to about £565. I have now preordered with argos, meaning i wont get it for launch, but probably about a month after.
-Xiofire

could you post that email?