As much as I love new toys, the sound of my bank account taking a big hit doesn't appeal to me. Gamasutra has a
report where the Sony France boss comments on the pricing of the system. In US dollars, the European price has been mentioned by the person as being $612 to $734. I know the PlayStation 3 has a lot of new technologies in there but man, that's one expensive piece of hardware. Considering you can get an Xbox 360 at almost half the price, this is one tough pill to swallow.
Speaking of the Xbox 360, I was able to find a few units in stores sitting in the locked cases for sale at a Walmart so maybe the drought is over.