PS3's Irish pre-sales figures: is the world going mad?

So who says the PS3 is too expensive for the mass market in Ireland? Well I did, for one. But boy, am I shaping up to be wrong. In casual conversation with a clerk in Xtravision's Finglas branch last night, he said that they has already exceeded their pre-launch sales target of 10. In fact, they've already sold 27. In Finglas. And most of them, he said, were fully paid up! Just to remind everyone, the basic console (with no games and only one controller) costs €630. A package with two games and a second controller, which Mr Xtravision said was the most popular option, costs €715. I asked him who the hell was shelling out such bread in one of Dublin's poorer neighbourhoods. I mean, we're nowhere near Christmas. "Kids," he said. "Teenagers and Leaving Cert types." That's a lot of communion or confirmation money.