I’ve known for a little while now I wasn’t going to bother with the PS3 unless some truly unique titles come up and the price subsequently drops so buying one at launch was a no-no for me but once I found out only two of my friends were getting them (and I have a lot of geeky friends) I knew Sony were in trouble.

A quick browse shows Amazon.co.uk still have some available, Play have them left, hell even my local HMV here on the tiny island of Guernsey had over 100 unallocated at lunch today and had canceled their midnight launch event — albeit for ‘technical’ reasons.

The Xbox 360 enjoyed its second year and titles continue to impress although the count is still a little on the weak side. The addition of 1080p output was a great bonus but one many people (myself included) can’t take advantage of without a HDMI cable and nobody seems entirely sure if the 360 can pump out a digital video signal (I doubt it).

On-line support is blooming although can get very expensive if you want all the extras for games you’ve already paid for — come on guys we put £40 down gives a few freebies!

I got a new silver Sony EyeToy for my birthday (along with the EyeToy 3 games, thanks Amy!) and found that it didn’t want to play with Windows.

The earlier black model worked just fine with a modified INF file and so it was back to notepad to slip in the required lines.

Shopping on-line from the Channel Islands isn’t always a pleasant experience. Many companies can’t be bothered with the making a VAT-exempt outside-EU sale and when they do they like to use expensive shipping options instead of the often reliable and cheap Special Delivery service.

Here’s a few tips and sites to make things a bit less painless.

My little brother just decided he’d like to merge his November birthday present and his Christmas presents in the hope I’d get him a Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP).

I decided to beat the seasonal rush and get one now and checked out my usual on-line suppliers of merchandise… Amazon, out of stock despite their Google advert claiming otherwise, Play and MX2 out of stock (Play now have it back in stock for £179.99 including Donnie Darko UMD). A few other stores I’d not used were also out of stock or rather vague on the whole issue.