According to reports in the Guardian , Ray Maquire, Sony Computer Entertainment's UK managing director, said that it is too simplistic to compare the price paid for the console in the US and Japan (where the console has been available for a few months longer now) with the price paid in Blighty.

He said the most obvious one was VAT. "There's a compulsion within the media to look at everything as a snapshot, and do a calculation, normally based on just the RRP in somewhere like the US and just the RRP in the UK. What you should do with the RRP from the US is add sales tax," he told the Guardian.

He also said that VAT rates vary from country to country in Europe from being cheap in some countries while being "extortionate" in others (i.e. Ireland). He also said that currency fluctuations had to be taken into consideration as the company doesn't buy in dollars and it can go up as well as down (like the proverbial financial adverts say). "we're dealing with euros and yen - it's about the relationship between those currencies," he said.

He also said that a change of two pence in in the Euro to Sterling rate could add as much as £12 to the cost of the console. He also blamed the higher cost of living, transport costs, and just about everything save Hailey's comet on why we will have to pay more than our continental cousins for the privilege of playing the new console.

That said, the Wii is a lot cheaper and looks a lot more fun than the serious PS3.

(Absolute note: When writing this article, we made a typo which we later corrected. So instead of PS3, we typed in PS£. Co-incidence?)