Much chuntering on the Internet today about the fact the Sony is talking about taking pre-orders for its PlayStation 3 console, with a possible new allocation scheme being discussed whereby £150 should secure you a console on day one.

‘Rah, rah, rah... too much’ comes the predictable shouts from the anti-Sony corner. Well, let’s look at this. If you are going to shell out a total of £425 for The Future of Gaming™, then you may as well put a decent dent in that by laying down nearly a third of the cash to make sure you get one, when you want one.

At least in this way eager early adopters will be able to avoid a repeat of last year's Xbox 360 debacle, where many gamers were left console-less at launch, whilst hundreds of eBay profiteers were flogging off their newly acquired 360s for obscene prices.

Nothing has been confirmed from the Sony camp, at time of going to press, so we will keep you updated as soon as we have more concrete news on the pre-order scheme.

SCEE’s PR supreme, David Wilson, has also confirmed that both 20GB and 60GB PS3s will be available in Europe, and that we should have more definite news on UK stock allocations within the next two or three weeks.