Well it’s a little known fact that despite being a small island nation Ireland had the largest amount of PlayStation consoles per capitia than any other country except Japan during the PS1 and PS2 era, it could be a similar story now with the PS3 as well. With the popularity of the national sports of Gaelic football and hurling there was a bit of a market here for a game based on these sports. They are very high-paced field games - especially hurling, which is considered the fastest field sport in the world - so like ice hockey they would lend themselves very well to a videogame. Sony hired a team from Australia to make games based on the sports, which had already made an Aussie rules football game that was well received. Aussie rules is fairly similar to Gaelic football, so much so that every year there's a compromised rules series of games played against Irish and Australian all star teams.

Anyway, the first game got critically panned but people still bought it in droves and it ended up being one of the best selling games ever in Ireland. However, the poor quality of the title saw it filling up second hand shelves within a fortnight. The next two games, one based on hurling and the other a sequel to the Gaelic football title didn't sell as well, probably due to the disappointment with the first game.

It's kind of weird that a game is made specifically aimed at not only one single region, but such a small one at that (think the current population of Ireland is only 5 million people). It's a pity the final product was so poor because there's a good game waiting to be made based on these two Irish national sports.

There was also talk of the GPA (gaelic players association) in a deal to make a competing game with an Irish company, which would have included all the player names and likenesses unlike the GAA licensed games, but it never went ahead. It's kind of the only noteworthy and unique thing that the Irish have in gaming since the Irish scene is basically the same as the British scene except the N64 launch was an even bigger shambles. Sony Ireland I have to say really did do a fantastic job of marketing the PS1 over here and really got it established. Sega and Nintendo relied on advertising from the UK filtering over here through TV stations while Sony Ireland had TV ads and advertising campaigns unique to Ireland.