I am hereby pitting all the fucktards who waited in line at the various consumer electronics retailers to buy the Playstation 3 this morning when they went on sale, not so they can go home and play Madden NFL 07 in glorious High Def or so their kids will be excited/surprised/totallyfuckingspeachless on Christmas morning, but simply to resell it to make a profit.
Two local Walmarts each only got 6 consoles to sell and were only promised 4 more systems before the end of the year and at both locations the sales people told me that everyone in line was saying how that they were going to be reselling the consoles on Ebay except one single couple who had :gasp: :eek: bought it for thier kids. Now, I’m no pinko communist, I understand supply and demand, free market economies etc. but damn it man. Some of these machines are already being sold on Ebay for upwards of $5000. And that is for a “supposedly guaranteed” console bought during the presale. The ads for systems that are in hand are going for $10,000+. The retail price of $700 was a hard enough sell to my wife, but I have been a good boy this year, and I had said that the PS3 would be my only Christmas AND Birthday gift this year. At this point I’ll have to wait until next year to even have a chance to get one.
For everyone who thinks this is just a bunch of sour grapes because I didn’t get one. [del]You’re right.[/del] But at least I was going to keep the damn thing, and you know, actually play it. God damn PS3 Vultures. I hope that all the systems sold on Ebay get irrepairably damaged in shipping and all the buyers leave you negative feedback.
Aren’t Sony taking a loss of several hundred dollars on every PS3 sold? If so, I can’t imagine they’re particularly enamoured at people selling them for enormous profit, either.
Meh. I agree but what’re you going to do. Sony creates demand by dribbling out a tiny amount of consoles, people are going to take advantage. Even if they’re taking a loss they get a huge amount of hype and they can say that the system was released ‘for Christmas’ so that they don’t have to announce another delay.
I’d pit the people paying the ridiculous prices for something just because they can’t wait a couple more months (but they’ll probably get screwed 'cos there’s always some glitches with the first few consoles). And pit Sony for not just having the balls to suck it up wait a few months and release a decent amount to market.
I’ve always thought that sales like this shouldn’t go to ‘first in line’, it creates all sorts of bad impressions. I’d much prefer limited releases to be done via a lottery system but that’s just my. I doubt I’ll be able to get a PS3 until this time next year.
Sony has no one but themselves to blame for this crap. TEN consoles for a Wal*Mart in basically a month and a half? That’s all they’re sending?
When you deliberately underdeliver to that degree in hopes of raising demand, you take the consequences. I feel bad for the people who want to actually use the thing, but not bad at all for Sony.
I think it’s wonderful. Capitalism at its best. Of course, Sony may have limited production to hype up the frenzy. Don’t worry, there will be so many units for sale on Ebay the price will drop.
I can’t imagine wanting something that bad that I’m willing to camp out for days to get it.
I agree that it’s Sony’s fault. I think they do this on purpose to create hype, and the people who wait a week or pay through the nose just play into their hands.
On a side note, I think it’s sad that grown-ups invest such a large part of their lives in what is basically an expensive toy.
You can read what I think of the PS3 here. (Here’s the short version: It’s crap.) I see no problem making a few hundred bucks off some damn fool with more money than sense. As for Madden 07, you’re much better off with the current-gen versions. Hell, some people I know even prefer Madden 05. The Xbox 360 and PS3 versions look nice and all, unless you look closer and see the horrendous clipping problems. (Clipping is when objects intersect that shouldn’t, like when the football passes through someone’s head.) Also, the menus are weird and clunky, and they took out some features.
Are you sure the consoles on eBay aren’t being bid up by fake bidders? I can imagine a fair few people getting disgruntled and putting insane bids to make it as difficult as possible for the resellers.
There is something unseemly about these sorts of arbitrage situations. A product that is freely available to all at a “reasonable” price is taken from the market and made available only to the rich. It’s similar to ticket brokers snarfing up good seats to popular acts, letting the richie rich’s of the world buy tickets on a whim, but real fans who could afford tickets at the sale price get shut out.
It’s the free market, and there isn’t much you can do about it, except bitch, so I’ll bitch.
How quickly people forget - Microsoft had the same ‘problem’ when they came out with the Xbox 360 - short supply aimed at stimulating buzz over the ‘high demand’.
Given the backlog of games I still have to work through, I’m always anywhere from two to four years behind the curve - I just finished FFX, and now am working through DQVIII. So I don’t get to play with the toys when they’re all shiny and new. But I also generally only pay about half what the console cost when it first came out, I have a full library of games at my disposal when I do buy, and even great games can often be picked up for under $20 when they’re 2-3 years old. Heck, I picked up Planescape: Torment for like $10 in a bargain bin at EB.
'Course, if I was a teenager I’m sure I would absolutely NEED the PS3 RIGHT AWAY, or I’d DIE.
And Crotalus, thanks - you can buy me a new keyboard now. Mine has coffee all over it.
For what it’s worth, I’m not sure how much this is actually Sony’s fault. Well, it is their fault, but I don’t think it’s deliberate at this point. My understanding was that shortages are due to difficulties manufacturing the lenses (?) associated with the laser on the blu ray drives, combined with the fact that it would be, arguably, an unthinkable disaster to let Microsoft and Nintendo gain another holiday season’s lead by delaying until next year. So, while they might have planned things somewhat poorly, I don’t think they’re just gratuitously trying to make it look popular by understocking. At this point, so far as I can tell, it would be in their interest to get as many consoles out there as possible to keep developers interested in the platform.
That purchase has probably the highest ((quality * gamelength) / expense) value of any I’ve ever heard of. Nicely done.
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