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PlayStation (Games) The Almighty Buck

The Decline of the PS3 Grey Market 274

Posted by Zonk from the ground-floor dept.
Kotaku has a great piece up looking at trends over time in the PS3 grey market. Michael Fahey has been tracking the falling prices for Sony's new console, via sales on eBay and other markers. He called around to stores as well, getting a feel for the number of returns and current availability of the console. His conclusions: "As it turns out my gamer instincts and the threat of hordes of angry readers steered me clear of potential disaster. Aside from a couple brief spikes, there is no way I'd have been able to pull off the television, and I know damn well I would have waited for Christmas like so many others did, only to lose even more. The moral of this story? There's no such creature as a sure thing. The majority of eBay prospectors walked away from this experience with that lesson burned into the back of their brains. My suggestion for the future? If you want to gamble, go to Vegas. If you want to invest, try mutual funds. Leave the video game system buying to the gamers. We'll all be happier for it. "
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The Decline of the PS3 Grey Market More

The Decline of the PS3 Grey Market

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  • Wii on Ebay (Score:4, Interesting)

    by LoverOfJoy ( 820058 ) on Friday December 29, 2006 @12:45PM (#17400198) Homepage
    Now if only the prices would drop for the wii and people started returning them to stores so I could find one.

    • Re:Wii on Ebay (Score:5, Interesting)

      by UbuntuDupe ( 970646 ) * on Friday December 29, 2006 @12:48PM (#17400262) Journal
      People aren't returning Wiis because a) people like them, and b) you can sell them for more than the refund.

      Confession: I'm a failed PS3 scalper. I thought I struck gold when the store I was in announced they had three in stock and I got one (Dec 20). Yesterday I was able to return it (the PlayAlbatross 3 as I call it) for a full refund after price on resell sites plummeted to the point where it wouldn't be worth it. Also, amazon wouldn't take sales from new sellers, and craigslist had scalper hunters unjustly flagging scalpers.

      Arbitrage isn't as risk-free as they like to make it sound.

      • Re:Wii on Ebay (Score:4, Insightful)

        by RasputinAXP ( 12807 ) on Friday December 29, 2006 @12:54PM (#17400370) Homepage Journal
        You say "unjustly" as if scalping is a good thing.

        • Re:Wii on Ebay (Score:4, Insightful)

          by UbuntuDupe ( 970646 ) * on Friday December 29, 2006 @12:59PM (#17400438) Journal
          You say "unjustly" as if scalping is a good thing.

          I said "unjustly" in the sense that the PS3 listings that were being removed clearly met all of craigslist's rules.

          But scalping is a good thing in that it makes it possible for people willing to pay more (rather than spend ages line) able to get one without getting line. If there were no scalpers, people would just hire placeholders. I don't think that would make anyone feel any better.

          • Re:Wii on Ebay (Score:5, Insightful)

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 29, 2006 @01:12PM (#17400600)
            scalping is a good thing in that it makes it possible for people willing to pay more (rather than spend ages line) able to get one without getting line.

            The thing is, the fact that the market tanked so quickly means that the vast majority of the people in line WERE the scalpers. Scalpers manufactured the long lines and shortages they tried to profit from, only in this case, the only people to sell to were the other scalpers that were waiting in line to get one because there was no real shortage of units, only the demand created by the scalpers.

          • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

            by DragonWriter ( 970822 )

            I said "unjustly" in the sense that the PS3 listings that were being removed clearly met all of craigslist's rules.

            Aside from the "Prohibited" category, which applies to violations of rules, the other ways in which things can be flagged on craigslist aren't supposed to be "rules violations", per se, as much as subjective judgments of appropriateness by users.

            But scalping is a good thing in that it makes it possible for people willing to pay more (rather than spend ages line) able to get one without getting

          • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

            by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
            Comment removed based on user account deletion
            • Hahahahahahahaha.....

              Equal Rights...

              Thanks for the laugh. The wealthy in the US have always had more rights than the poor. Sorry to say it, but it's true. They get better jobs, have access to better schools, have more opportunities. Yeah, everyone's got a story about a poor inner city youth that worked hard, stayed out of trouble and went on to be CEO of a fortune 500 company, but for every one of those, I could find 10,000 stories about a poor inner city youth that went on do jail or was shot to deat

            • Re:Wii on Ebay (Score:4, Insightful)

              by Volante3192 ( 953645 ) on Friday December 29, 2006 @01:55PM (#17401256)
              That would be socialism. This is capitalism, and wealth is seperate from rights.

            • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

              by supabeast! ( 84658 )
              It makes the weathly have a better chance than the regular folks.

              What's wrong with that? If the wealthy lived the same lives as the lower classes, what would incentvize the lower classes to be more productive? I don't have a Wii because some loser sat around Best Buy all night waiting to buy me one. I have a Wii because a hardworking attorney busted his butt to earn a salary that allowed him to spend less time buying one on eBay than it would have taken just to drive to the nearest Best Buy. Exceptional peo

              • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

                by gutnor ( 872759 )
                "what would incentvize the lower classes to be more productive"

                Successful not productive.
                By being hardworking and very productive, you just increase the chance of being successful under the right circumstances.
                Most of the time, you need an opportunity and be able to milk it.
                If you father is CEO of a Fortune 500 company, you have plenty of possibilities and only need average effort to be successful.

                "Exceptional people deserve to be rewarded for their talent, intelligence, and efforts, not brought down to the
            • I just did a quick alt-f for "PS3" in the Constitution but didn't find anything... sorry.
          • I said "unjustly" in the sense that the PS3 listings that were being removed clearly met all of craigslist's rules.

            You said "unjustly" because you think it isn't fair that you didn't get the profit you were looking for. Market tanked, and your outlet of last resort rejected you.

            At least you got your money back.

          • But scalping is a good thing in that it makes it possible for people willing to pay more (rather than spend ages line) able to get one without getting line. If there were no scalpers, people would just hire placeholders. I don't think that would make anyone feel any better.

            It's pretty clear to me in this case that if there were no scalpers, there never would have been a shortage in the first place. All the scalpers did is make it so people had to either wait more than a month or pay a higher price to get a PS3. How are the scalpers making things better for anyone but themselves?

          • Re:Wii on Ebay (Score:4, Interesting)

            by @madeus ( 24818 ) <slashdot_24818@mac.com> on Saturday December 30, 2006 @12:03AM (#17406400)
            I said "unjustly" in the sense that the PS3 listings that were being removed clearly met all of craigslist's rules.

            I think many here would argue it's still just, irrespective of it meeting craigslist rules or not.

            But scalping is a good thing in that it makes it possible for people willing to pay more

            Alternatively, it make it nigh on impossible for people willing to pay a reasonable price to get hold of one, and so the products (or tickets) go unused, ultimately satisfying very few people (and so being detrimental overall).

            I've seen this both at events and with consoles (typically with loads of people then complaining they couldn't get tickets/consoles through offical channels and having witnessed myself items subsequently being withdrawn from eBay or failing to meet minimum bits, and in the case of tickets, loads of scalpers trying to sell tickets at the door to no avail, and the venue being only 3/4 full despite tickets having 'sold out' in the first hour). The 'empty seats' issue being one of the reasons why tickets for major sports events are often so heavily controlled and tied to a name on photo ID these days (due to unused tickets meaning less people attending the event, and so harming sales of food/drink/t-shirts, etc).

            Loads of scalpers end up with excess goods (consoles, tickets, etc) - and potential customers (gamers, music fans, sports fans) end up pissed off and can't buy what they wanted. The summary is right, it's not a good way to make money, if it was I think it's likely event ticket scalpers would not resemble homeless people (as they invariably do). It's seems evident that most people who feel the need to result to gambling on being able to resell consoles as a way to make money are not comfortably off either (if they are, then they are irredeemably greedy).

            It only makes money for a very select few, as we've simply seen that there are not tens of thousands of people willing to pay insane prices for consoles rather than wait two months, hell there are barely hundreds of people willing to pay significantly over the RRP, yet scalpers screw up by vastly overestimating demand. "Oh look, that one guy made 10,000 USD selling one on eBay! I should be able to get that too!" (and thinking they are hard done by and blaming others when it doesn't work for them).

            e.g. Saying things like "The concert was promoted poorly", or "the team/band/console is no good" rather than thinking they were undone by their own greed.

            I saw my I got my X-Box 360 bundle in a store in the middle of London for 380 UKP (IIRC) about a month after they came out. Even though there were no units in store anywhere else, it sat there for a week before I went 'Screw it, I'm thinking of getting an HDTV next month or so, may as well get one now if it's only 80 UKP more, it's not like I'm hard up'. The same story is repeating itself now with the Wii and PS3, in that people arn't willing to pay much over the RRP and would rather just wait.

            There is currently a Wii in the same shop also for sale at 360 UKP (bizzarely enough). Normal RRP is 180 UKP, can't get them in any other shops, it has been there for two weeks just being ignored (frankly even I'm surprised, nearly bought it myself). This is a shop that scalps professionally, right in the middle of London (Zone 1, TCR) and people are not paying it much attention even at Christmas. Looks like people are waiting for more stock (which will invariably be around at the end of Jan). They also have a PS3, but it's an import version (no idea what crazy price it's selling at, or if it's even for sale).

            If there were no scalpers, people would just hire placeholders.

            I doubt that. Only the very wealthy (or incredibly determined and fiscally irresponsible ;-) could afford to have someone do that for a reasonable amount of money - or you'd have to give the job to a person who needed the money so badly most people would be worried about them doing something like scalping i
      • Confession: I'm a failed PS3 scalper. I thought I struck gold when the store I was in announced they had three in stock and I got one (Dec 20).

        Well, its actually a good lesson in investing and gambling ... no such thing as a sure thing.

        • Well, its actually a good lesson in investing and gambling ... no such thing as a sure thing.
          So.. let me get this straight he (1) made an investment of 600$ +/- (2) attempted to capitalize on his investment, but failed and then (3) got a full refund.

          Where is the risk in that again?

          -GiH

          • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

            by Average_Joe_Sixpack ( 534373 )
            Where is the risk in that again?

            Well in this case he wound up not being compensated for his time (which of course is a concern in investing). But in general I was referring to the concept of betting on a sure thing.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by nuzak ( 959558 )
        > and craigslist had scalper hunters unjustly flagging scalpers.

        You bought it with the express purpose of taking advantage of the short supply to get a markup. Whether or not you think scalping is just capitalism at work, what part of this doesn't make you a scalper? Craigslist looks down on scalpers, which is also their choice in a free market.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Total_Wimp ( 564548 )

        People aren't returning Wiis because a) people like them, and b) you can sell them for more than the refund.

        a) Nothing in the article suggests people don't like their PS3s. In fact, the article suggests the opposite conclusion. From my reading of the article, scalpers are returning them not because they don't like them, but because they're entrepreneurs who are only interested in the PS3 as an investment and that investment didn't pan out. However, as soon as the boxes get back in the stores, they're bei

      • People aren't returning Wiis because a) people like them, and b) you can sell them for more than the refund.

        Confession: I'm a failed PS3 scalper. I thought I struck gold when the store I was in announced they had three in stock and I got one (Dec 20). Yesterday I was able to return it (the PlayAlbatross 3 as I call it) for a full refund after price on resell sites plummeted to the point where it wouldn't be worth it.

        You never wanted it? Did you even try it? Just curious...

      • Arbitrage isn't as risk-free as they like to make it sound.

        Huh? As long as you ditch your PS3 before the return period ends, the only thing you've risked is a little bit of free time, some gas, and maybe some interest on your credit card. And from all indications, for now you can still turn a profit - just not the mammoth gonzo profits you were hoping for.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Megane ( 129182 )

        and craigslist had scalper hunters unjustly flagging scalpers.

        I've also heard that on craigslist, scalpers are unjustly flagging reports of PS3s available in stores. [atariage.com]

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by the dark hero ( 971268 )
      ...or the DS which is said to be grossly back-ordered till late january. :(

  • good article (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mgabrys_sf ( 951552 ) on Friday December 29, 2006 @12:53PM (#17400350) Journal
    I liked the disclaimers on hard-numbers etc, but it did give an idea of what the retail action is as well as the charting of prices. For those who want to wait until prices fall on the PS3, I suggest checking the price curves on the PS2. Here's a hint: They didn't move for over a year. You've got a long - LONG wait. Sony after taking a loss on intitial units will take the profits on the hardware as long as they can when they emerge.

    Still - cheaper than the Atari 2600 / VCS on an inflation adjusted dollar bla bla bla. All I know is it can knock 4000 dollars worth of computers I have sitting in front of me out of the ballpark graphicswise. Once some decent games emerge I'll be heading to the retailer myself to get one. Probably around the time I finish Zelda for the Wii (geez it's huge).

    • Re: (Score:2, Redundant)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 )

      For those who want to wait until prices fall on the PS3, I suggest checking the price curves on the PS2. Here's a hint: They didn't move for over a year.

      If I were going to buy a PS3 - which I am not, because I am boycotting Sony and making sure to tell everyone why (more on this later) - then I would be happy to wait a year, so some good games could come out for the system.

      I already have a PS2, like practically every other gamer in America, so the PS2 games aren't any kind of attraction.

    • "All I know is it can knock 4000 dollars worth of computers I have sitting in front of me out of the ballpark graphicswise."

      Does that $4000 computer have a $3300 case?

      It's trivial to build a $1000 gaming computer that is significantly better than a PS3. Get an 8800GTS, a cheap Core Duo processor and mobo, 2GB of RAM, and a cheapo 160GB hard drive and you're in business.
      • Well he did say "$4000 worth computers".

        Perhaps that $4000 worth encompasses 15 different systems, none of which can best the PS3? ? ? No?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by xero314 ( 722674 )
        I'm not going to try and say the PS3 is the the most powerful machine on the planet or anything like that, but it is still a better deal, cost to power ratio, than a PC.

        It's trivial to build a $1000 gaming computer that is significantly better than a PS3. Get an 8800GTS, a cheap Core Duo processor and mobo, 2GB of RAM, and a cheapo 160GB hard drive and you're in business.

        It is trivial if you are not trying to build a comparable machine. Taking from your example and making it even comparable you end up ge

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by joshetc ( 955226 )
          PCs can be overclocked. You can easily get any core2duos to clock higher than the extreme (mine was ~$300 for the e6600, cheaper now I think) it clocks at 3.3 on stock air and barely over stock volts.

          Not to mention how many options you have as far as operating systems and other applications. Anything you can do on a PS3 can be done on a core2duo + 8800GS + 2gb ram homebrew rig. Not the other way around though.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by xero314 ( 722674 )

            Anything you can do on a PS3 can be done on a core2duo + 8800GS + 2gb ram homebrew rig.

            Except play PS 2 or 3 Games or Program a Cell Processor, but I'm probably just being picky. (Heck without a $750 blu ray drive on the homebrew rig you can't even view Blu Ray movies).

            To be perfectly honest, other than where specific software is concerned (i.e. specific OS), I can't see what you can do on your homebrew rig that you can't do on a PS3 (even your homebrew rig will have limitations on software, unless you

        • "You can't use a "cheap Core Duo"
          Yes you can.

          BFG Physics processor: $206 (Newegg.com)
          Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 Conroe 1.86GHz will suffice for $190 and a 2.99Ghz Core 2 Duo goes for around $500
          Mother Boards: no more than $150
          HD DVD drives: buy a Xbox360 drive. Which works with the PC ($200 max)
          Cases cost $35 and your cooling system can still be inexpensive.
          SATA 160GB are cheap and SATA 250GB 300mb/s are very inexpensive: $60-$90 per drive (Microcenter / Newegg)
          Memory: No more than $150 spent.
          The graphics card

          • Re:good article (Score:4, Insightful)

            by xero314 ( 722674 ) on Friday December 29, 2006 @04:00PM (#17402662)
            First of all I never said you couldn't put together a resonable game machine for 3 times the cost of a PS3, just not a comparable one. Even the one you just mentioned has less media capacity, Slower bus speeds, less total processing cores, etc.

            Interesting Idea using the Physics processor (which is basically a GPU dedicated to physics instead of graphics), but could you supply a list of games designed to use that physics processor?

            Now what we need to do is take your cheap game rig (which looks like it will be around $1500 complete) hook it up to an HD TV and then in 5 years compare to quality of games that will run on it vs. the games that will run on the PS3. In 5 years modern games won't even run on the machine you are talking about building, yet PS3 games always will. Games will become more and more optimized for the PS3 hardware where as in the general purpose computer realm developers will expect more powerful machines to be purchased so no need to optimize.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Manmademan ( 952354 )

        It's trivial to build a $1000 gaming computer that is significantly better than a PS3. Get an 8800GTS, a cheap Core Duo processor and mobo, 2GB of RAM, and a cheapo 160GB hard drive and you're in business.

        not to turn this into a PC vs. Console debate, but even IF you put all that together, you will have a grand total of zero games designed to take advantage of the strength of your system. (and of course, zero ability to play blu-ray films, but let's not go there right now)

        in contrast, every game release

      • It's trivial to build a $1000 gaming computer that is significantly better than a PS3.

        The hardware may have "significantly" better specs, but the software running on it isn't going to be significantly better.

        Console software still has a lot more potential for optimization than general-purpose computer software, due to the much smaller number of hardware configurations to target. A PC game has to support hundreds of combinations of CPU, GPU, sound card, etc. -- the only way to do that is to abstract everyth

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      "All I know is it can knock 4000 dollars worth of computers I have sitting in front of me out of the ballpark graphicswise."

      That shouldn't be so, unless you spent those 4000 dollars several years ago. A $4000 PC nowadays has two graphics cards, each of which is a generation ahead of the one in the PS3. It also has 8 times as much system RAM and three times the video RAM (per card). It can display higher quality graphics than the PS3, and at higher resolutions.
      If tech specs don't tell you then compare the t

    • Re:good article (Score:4, Informative)

      by Pluvius ( 734915 ) <pluvius3@@@gmail...com> on Friday December 29, 2006 @01:46PM (#17401100) Journal
      Two reasons why the PS3 won't be like the PS2 in this regard:

      1. $300 for the PS2 was thought of as a bit expensive. $600 for the PS3 is thought of as completely ridiculous. Sony's not going to be able to make money on the PS3 if no one is buying it.

      2. While the PS2 was slightly expensive for a whole load of reasons, about a third of the cost of the PS3 is in one component, the BluRay drive. This is a new technology and like all new technologies, it will drop in cost very rapidly.

      It's true that the price drop likely won't come until the next holiday season, but that's because of the way electronics sales work, not because Sony wants to hold off on it. And when it does come, it will likely be quite large.

      Rob

  • Trying to get a Wii been fun... (Score:5, Funny)

    by __aaclcg7560 ( 824291 ) on Friday December 29, 2006 @12:54PM (#17400360)
    Last week Amazon had randomly selected interested people to buy a Wii and the odds of getting one was listed. Getting a Wii was 28 to 1. Getting hemorrhoids was 25 to 1. At that point, I wasn't getting a Wii since I knew what I would get first. Now where's that Preparation H?
  • All speculation seems to exist with a long tail [criteo.com]-type graph. Initially, as supply is low and demand is high, the risk/reward ratio is low (meaning that the risk comes close to guaranteeing a reward). Yet over time, those numbers change and the risk/reward ratio goes up -- a high risk with a low reward. Quickly the profit curve falls -- very quickly if the items are easily supplied and demand is limited.

    In this case, as in many speculative ventures, the tail portion of the curve can drop below the zero poi
    • What I never understood about the PS3 is why Sony wouldn't have had more reason to sell them themselves in an auction style.

      Gamer backlash. Yeah, they'd be going only to people willing to pay that much, so in theory everyone's better off, but it would generate a lot of ill will among the broader gaming market. Unfounded in my opinion, but it would still cost them sales.

      It makes more sense to reap the profits for themselves -- I wonder how many Sony managers and upper-management were some of the initial e

    • Re:The Long Tail of speculation! (Score:4, Informative)

      by harryk ( 17509 ) <{jofficer} {at} {gmail.com}> on Friday December 29, 2006 @01:26PM (#17400812) Homepage
      Well... just a couple of thoughts, but before I get into them, let me first say that I agree with you.

      As a someone who was 'marginally' successful at scalping my 2 PS3's, I have to say that given it to do over, I would. I had a good time, and I cannot put a price tag on the 'event' itself. I still walked away with a profit.

      and I to do not understand why Sony (and really anyone else) doesn't just sell the items themselves. But I believe it has alot to do with law than anything to do with business.

      See, it kinda comes down to the same thing with automobiles, atleast here in the states. Technically speaking you, as a customer, cannot buy directly from the manufacturer, for nearly anything. In order for you to purchase item X, the seller has to pay certain fees within it's respective location, think sales-tax etc... . However, getting into a larger issue is that the states (individually) don't want you to be able to buy directly from the manufacturer, because it would cut out their 'inventory' taxes.

      It really comes down to taxing the hell out of the product prior to the sale, as that is REALLY where they make there money. Continuing to take car dealerships as an example, the 'dealer' typically does not actually own the vehicle, oh they bought it from the manufacturer, but they don't have to report the buy until the end of the year. At which time any remaining vehicles (and sometimes this is done quarterly, but we'll continue to use annually) are then taxed an 'inventory' tax, and this is on EVERYTHING, not just the car, but parts as well. Its a ridiculous mess.

      Now, thats for tangible items, talking about the concert is a little different.

      Ticketmaster (again as example) has contracted with nearly every venue out there, to be the sole promoter of any event, which in addition to just about everything else, grants them the right to sale tickets. There use to be a competitor called Ticketron if I recall correctly that did basically the same thing, but at a much lower price. At any rate, a band's promotions and tour organizations are typically in cohoots with Ticketmaster as well, so it benefits everyone but the band who (as I understand it) get very little of the actual 'ticket cost' after all the fees have been added in.

      There is nothing wrong with a band attempting to sale it's own tickets, but then it must also incur all marketing costs, venue rental (assuming one can be found that isn't under ticketmaster's thumb) etc... quite quickly becoming cost prohibitive.

      Ticketmaster is a fucking rip-off! ... They charge you a 'convenience fee' for web-based or phone based orders, in addition to their already inflated ticket pricing. I hate ticketmaster

      • Manufacturers have the ability to sell to anyone they want. You are correct that if they do, they have to take on the role of tax-collector for the State; that's every state they sell product in. Not the kind of paperwork they really want to get involved with.

        For instance, in California, If you are a manufacturer that does not sell to the public you get a tax exempt form that allows you to buy raw material without paying the state of California any tax on it. Without this document you pay the tax.

        Anoth

        • Another consideration is contract law. Sony has contracts with Best Buy, Circuit Shitty, Target, you name the company, to supply them with items. I suppose that each of those contracts has a clause that prohibits Sony from by-passing them and selling direct to the consumer. I could be wrong, but I wouldn't be surprised to find out that such a clause was standard.

          They may, but there must be a loophole.

          Otherwise how could the http://www.sonystyle.com/ [sonystyle.com] store exist?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by LocoMan ( 744414 )
      On the ticketmaster thing... not sure how it works in the US, but here in Venezuela the one that sells the ticket is the producer, the band doesn't have anything to do with them (directly, at least).

      The company I work for rents stuff to shows (projection/plasma screens and lighting and sound systems). Basically the way it works is that you have a producer that sees a chance to bring an artist, so they contact them and pay them a set amount to play at a specific date and place, then rents the place, promotes

  • From a retail standpoint... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by borderpatrol ( 942564 ) on Friday December 29, 2006 @01:23PM (#17400766)
    I work for a major electronics retailer, and we had originally sold our systems in bundles only for approx. $1200 each, with later bundles around the $900 range. We are getting approx. 10 of these bundles being returned a day. We started getting the majority of them after December 20th or so., which would be around the last day to ship from eBay. We are acepting these items back for return, but alot of the folks who bought them on the 17th are stuck with a $1200 store credit.

    All the scalpers are mostly saying that "We didn't need it", "We got 2 for christmas", etc. One guy I talked to was honest and told me he bought it to flip on eBay, but the market fell out. Now he's waiting on a Wii to buy for himself.

    We have lots of PS3s here at the store gathering dust (we got the largest shipment per store of any electronics retailer), people just aren't interested in them at all anymore.

  • Nice analysis. I've pointed out before that eBay prices on the PS3 were in a screaming dive within days of launch, but this uses enough data to really make that clear.

    We went through this with the XBox 360, but with more speculators. People were trying to unload those things on eBay for months, finally at prices below retail.

    The "secret reserve price" thing on eBay is a big part of the problem. That encourages overpriced items and wastes buyer time on auctions doomed to fail. Sellers like it, becaus

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by 0kComputer ( 872064 )
      We went through this with the XBox 360, but with more speculators. People were trying to unload those things on eBay for months, finally at prices below retail.

      If I remember correctly the 360's were selling at a premium on e-bay well into the spring. I think that the point of this article is that we've barely passed X-Mas and the prices are already down around retail, which probably implies low demand. In other words, sony is screwed.

      • If I remember correctly the 360's were selling at a premium on e-bay well into the spring. I think that the point of this article is that we've barely passed X-Mas and the prices are already down around retail, which probably implies low demand. In other words, sony is screwed.

        You are right about how long 360 prices stayed high, but the quicker price drop on the PS3s isn't due to lower demand.

        Sony actually came through and have ramped up production on the PS3 much faster than Microsoft was able to ramp up p

        • "That increased supply is what affected the curve, not the drop in the demand." Not only production, returned items as well.
          • "That increased supply is what affected the curve, not the drop in the demand." Not only production, returned items as well.


            Absolutely true. As the price falls, and more of the units that are out there by scalpers get returned, they only add to the supply further affecting the curve (although I would say their impact is probably minimal compared to the increased supply of units by Sony).
  • Kotaku also has an blurb on the Blair's picking up a PS/3 during their recent trip to Florida. The PS/3 won't be released in Europe for another three months.
  • Right after the E3 gaming conference (where the buzz first got going for the Revolution / Wii) - Nintendo (ADR) shares were at $18. Today they are over $32. $600 invested in Nintendo after E3 would have netted you $416 profit (after commission). Without having to stand in line.

    Disclaimer: I own stock in Nintendo. I also own a Wii (which I may get to play after my wife finishes 'Twilight Princess').

  • Retailers' lesson? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by lpangelrob ( 714473 ) on Friday December 29, 2006 @03:10PM (#17402154)
    So at some point, when will Best Buy, Circuit City, etc. figure it out and charge a 15% restocking fee for returned consoles so that I don't have to worry about nearly as many scalpers?

    The fact people were able to just return the consoles free and clear means that there really isn't a cost associated with scalping, unlike with sporting events, where you have a time deadline. This shouldn't happen.

  • I work in retail... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Cyno01 ( 573917 ) <Cyno01@hotmail.com> on Friday December 29, 2006 @11:49PM (#17406308) Homepage
    And i just got home from work about an hour ago. We got 6 60GB PS3s in today. Some guy returned one, so we sold -1 PS3s. On the other hand, sometime between when i got there at noon and when i took my first break @ 2, a half dozen each Wiimotes, Nunchucks and Classic controllers made their way to the floor (i picked up another nunchuck and a classic controller as soon as i saw them). By the end of the day there was one wiimote left. I cover in the electronics dept sometimes, and i had a shift there about a week after both releases, 10:1 the number of calls about the Wii vs PS3. Sonys lost.

    I normally work in the photo center, so i have a million other reasons to hate sony.

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