I would have dropped the $600 for this package.

The flagship Virgin Megastore on Oxford Street store opened its doors to the first customers keen to get their hands on PS3 at noon on Wednesday. Although only a handful turned up to spend the night in the store, by 11pm on Thursday the queue had grown to over 100 people.

With just 20 minutes to go until the console officially went on sale, Sony UK boss Ray Maguire stepped up to address the crowd in front of a large flatscreen TV.

" This is a 46-inch Bravia W series. It' s an award-winning flat panel," he said. " And do you know what the good news, is guys? I' m going to give you one free."

The cheers were muted at first, but then the news began to sink in. When Maguire clarified, " Every single one of you in this queue is going to get one," the crowd responded with whoops and applause.

At midnight, the first PlayStation 3 was handed over to 17 year-old Ritatsu Thomas, who' d been waiting since 5am on Wednesday. He also received a Bravia TV to take home, but everyone else in the queue - 125 people in total - was told they' ll receive their television next week.

This beats out free beer and the Xboat

But still no HD cables included? IT' S A SCAM I TELL YOU!

...

those lucky BASTARDS !

Oh why didn' t I stand in that queue!

Lucky Brits, my brother and his friend waited outside BestBuy for 67 hours in November, in Canada and they got jack shit. BTW, thats how I got my launch unit, they bought 3 and let me buy one off them.

was told they' ll receive their television next week.

Bull shit. Sony cant afford it

Sony cares about it' s fans, microsoft rewards fans by scamming them with crappy hardware and promoting alcoholism.

I would hardly call giving only a handful of gamers such an expensive prize shows that sony cares considering they already delayed the ps3 launch for 4 months, charged European gamers more then the Japanese and US gamers (for the ps3) & cutting full backwards hardware compatibility.

It was a very good publicity stunt thats all, which almost got upstaged by microsofts gate crashing the ps3 launch in France.

ORIGINAL: Terrak

I would hardly call giving only a handful of gamers such an expensive prize shows that sony cares considering they already delayed the ps3 launch for 4 months, charged European gamers more then the Japanese and US gamers (for the ps3) & cutting full backwards hardware compatibility.

Well i guess the extra money is because of taxes, the delay gave gamers a much better launch line up and the backwards compatibility will be fixed, besides, a 46 inch Bravia will always be better than 100 gallons of beer.

But I' d take an expensive HDTV over funny lasting memories any day. Call me shallow.

It was a very good publicity stunt thats all, which almost got upstaged by microsofts gate crashing the ps3 launch in France.

To some people MS may have had a good marketing ploy. To me, not so much. I like a product to speak for itself, and not require any shots or jibes at rivals. Look at Japanese cars. They rarely advertised them, they were laughed at by the big 3, but they have come up, and seriously put the hurt on the big 3, to the point where they have lost segments they once dominated, and are bleeding huge sums of money.

I won' t hold what MS did against them for the most part, but I surely won' t rgive them kudo' s for it.

What if sony gave out chairs that said " shouldn' t have broken so much" ? I think they would get flamed pretty hard for that.

ORIGINAL: Dagashi

What if sony gave out chairs that said " shouldn' t have broken so much" ? I think they would get flamed pretty hard for that.

It would be pointless, funny, but pointless.

MS fans act like its the best thing in the fucking world because they made fun of a rival company, please, that happens all the time, even in the petty fast food industry you always have burger king, wendy' s and mc donalds constantly dissing eachothers hamburgers on TV, it' s no big deal, it' s funny, but move on, nobody gives a fuck, its a quick laugh and thats it.

It seems MS fans are entertained more by stuff like this than by the games on their pathetic trash consoles.

ORIGINAL: Terrak

I would hardly call giving only a handful of gamers such an expensive prize shows that sony cares considering they already delayed the ps3 launch for 4 months, charged European gamers more then the Japanese and US gamers (for the ps3) & cutting full backwards hardware compatibility.

It was a very good publicity stunt thats all, which almost got upstaged by microsofts gate crashing the ps3 launch in France.

Actually, they did that because they care.

It' s better to wait 6 months and get reliable hardware than get shoddily mass produced hardware with ZERO quality control like Xbox360 six months early.

Sony knew they could only produce so many quality built units, they also knew that just by snapping their fingers they could increase production and even lower costs at the risk of increasing their margin of defective units, like the responsible company that they are, they chose to just delay the hardware instead of giving you trash that you will have to repair within a month like X360.

Honestly, I would have rather got my X360 6 months later, than get the piece of crap I got which I exchanged 3 times until I just said fuck it and sold my last unit before it broke. If anything MS *lost* a consumer with me thanks to not taking their time to properly manufacture the machines, they were so desperate to grab a hold on the market they didn' t give 2 shits about selling defective hardware - that is a company that doesn' t give a fuck about it' s consumers and only wants money.

But that' s not the biggest slap in the face from MS, oh no. Despite the fact that they rushed their hardware they also failed to do ANYTHING with their one year lead, in one year the only " AAA" game they have is Gears Of War - and that is an Epic game, it could have just as easily ended up on any other console, MS deserves no credit for it. As far as influence on GoW go, it' s 98% Epic, 2% MS, yet people try to give MS credit for it - just NO.

In their one year lead all they did was produce millions of defective units, and barely mustered off enough money to pay Epic to make a semi-exclusive games and to slap the Microsoft logo on top of them so people think MS has any ability whatsoever to create a decent game - they do not. The LEAST I would have expected from microsoft is to atleast have bought out 10+ AAA titles in their first year, but they failed to even do that. X360 is trash, simple as that.

There has to be some kind of trade off for me to tolerate shoddy hardware or poor game performance - I tolerated PS2' s questionable built quality because as soon as PS2' s 2nd christmas came I was simply BOMBARDED with quality games, it' s that simple. Fine I got screwed by the hardware but atleast I got SOMETHING, good games. With X360 I got shitty hardware and no games - that' s just a slap in the face. I wouldn' t be complaing at all if MS had amazing games out there, but they don' t, I' d buy 20 fucking Xbox360' s if they only had the games to make me do so - they don' t.

But lack of games isn' t enough for me to just stop supporting a console company, I wasn' t a big fan of the Sega Saturn, had some good games, but not ever enough, but you know what my Sega Saturn was still alive and kicking 10 years after I bought it, that shit just worked. They slapped me in the face with bad game support, but at least the physical form of what I bought from them - the console itself - at least it worked, at least I got SOMETHING out of it. X360 I get nothing, no games, and the hardware doesn' t work, I get absolutely NOTHING from Microsoft, thus they lose me as a customer, it' s as simple as that. I can' t even use their machine as a fucking DVD player because it doesn' t even work, MS gives me NOTHING.

You do have a point Evil Man. Considering Nintendo does this to their games i guess sony doing this for the ps3, they should be treated the same way. I just hope that the ps3 doesn' t run in the same problems as the 360. Considering the price it will definately hurt should it brick straight after the 1 year warranty expires.

I guess we' ll find out in 10 or so months time whether or not quality of the ps3 hardware stands the test of time.

X360' s were dropping dead the DAY of release, please, don' t try to bullshit you' re way out of this by saying " lets wait a year" .

If a PS3 breaks down after a year, that' s still 12 times better than what Microsoft has to offer, their trash consoles breaks down within 1-30 days.

You don' t even have to wait that long to tell the difference in quality, even with my longest lasting X360 (3 months - a record among X360 owners, I' m sure) I could slowly see as it died, first it starts off with games loading slower, then with the DVD and Hard Drives start making odd noises, then you notice it emits more heat than before, then you start getting random freezes, and next thing you know your system is dead.

With PS3 I see no such signs, I got one at launch and my games take exactly as long to load now as they did in November, I get exactly the same amount of freezes now as I get in November - ZERO, and the machine sounds just as quiet and runs just as cool as it did in November, you can tell it is of high quality just by observing its behavior on a weekly basis compared to the X360 trash which you can see with your own eyes how it degrades until it stops working.

LOL Evil Man i' m not a 360 fanboy, i' m a Nintendo/PC gamer. 360 problems are no concern of mine. When it comes to build quality IMO nothing beats Nintendo, My Launch N64 and GC & my GBA work as good as the day i bought them. Hopefully the same will be true with the Wii (though i did buy insurance for the Wii just in case).

they chose to just delay the hardware instead of giving you trash that you will have to repair within a month like X360.

BS. Sony never chose to delay their console, they just couldnt pull it off in time. Lets see, Dec 05? Spring 06? Summer 06? yeah they really " chose" to delay their console

ORIGINAL: mastachefbkw

BS. Sony never chose to delay their console, they just couldnt pull it off in time. Lets see, Dec 05? Spring 06? Summer 06? yeah they really " chose" to delay their console

It really doesent matter if they decided to delay the console or if they just couldnt make it in time, what matters are the facts, the PS3 is a very reliable pice of hardware, at the very least, more reliable than the 360.

PS3 launched in the US and Japan in November. 4+ months ago. Have we heard of widespread freezing issues, disk-read errors or system bricking???

No.

Now 4 months into 360' s launch forums were compiling lists of error codes and there were net-wide reports of consoles just " dying" .

It' s what you get when you adopt early. You' ve got at best, a 50/50 chance of getting shafted. Your console doesn' t work, or you chose the wrong format to support, or they' re not making good games. Wait, & be happy with your console.

I waited for almost a year to buy my 360, until it actually got a handful of good titles & I' ll be doing the same for the PS3.