Sell your soul to pre-order a British PS3

U.K. online retailer Play.com has made the PS3 available for pre-order in a bundle with three games, pushing the price up to £549.99 which, for a game console, is very near the "I'd have to sell my soul to get one" boundary. The real cheek is that the company doesn't guarantee that they'll be able to ship the console to you before Christmas "due to an expected European shortage of the PS3." On top of that, the three game bundle of Formula One '06, Warhawk and Singstar"may be changed, subject to availability."

We realize that these kind of bundles and disclaimers are the norm with console pre-orders, but if you convert this figure to dollars ($1,019.73) and compare it to similar deals for the Xbox 360 that we previously considered outrageous ($1,200 got you an Xbox 360 with 11 games and several accessories not too long ago), you get a good perspective on the difficult situation that Sony has put itself into by setting such a high sticker price. If the first pre-order bundle in the UK comes in at over half a grand, what can we expect from retailers in the weeks before the launch? I really don't want to be forced to sell my little sister's soul too.

[Via T3]