No one is being forced to buy a PS3. No one will die from lack of a PS3. This is a want, not a need, and the market is responding to the demand. I think it’s a beautiful example of supply and demand, and if some of those slackers, who spent days in line for one of these things, can sell it for a couple of thousand more than they paid for it, more power to them. They get more money, someone gets a game system. Everyone is happy.
Ticket scalping is illegal, what’s the difference?
The problem is that everybody does not have an equal chance to buy the product. The scumbag game-scalpers who camp out in line are depriving me of my ability to buy the game at the retail price.
It is only illegal in some jurisdiction, not all. Are you sure it should be illegal?
At least tickets are a limited quantity item, not an artificial shortage that is now the mainstay of product releases. Maybe you should instead demand that it be illegal to release a new product unless there is enough in the supply line to prevent crazed reselling problems.
Of course, that also makes no sense at all.
BTW: This will be insulting, but I say it in a chiding way and not to be an asshole.
You sound like my six year son saying, “Its not fair, I want it!”
Jim {Ivylass, I have been noticing lately we seem to have a similar outlook on life, cool}
Why? Prices aren’t laws. They are what sellers offer in the hopes of finding buyers. In the face of a shortage of some good, and the unwillingness of the original seller to change the price, the result is inevitably SOME form or system of rationing out the good. In this case, as in many, the system is “first come, first serve.” But that means that the people who really want to be first have to go to extreme lengths to do so. The only real alternative is a lottery, but since the store aren’t doing that, consumers are going to have to fight things out on their own.
Given that they did so, why shouldn’t they, if they choose, be able to sell for whatever price someone wants to buy it from them? They put in the effort, why can’t they reap the reward? There are only so many machines and lots and lots of people that want them. Some will get them, some won’t. Why is being willing to pay a higher price somehow more immoral than having the free time to camp out in front of a store? Some people are willing to trade patience for being able to get it at a lower price later. Some really really want it right now, and are willing to pay for it.
Isn’t that MORE fair than a lottery, where the limited good is doled out utterly regardless of who most wants it asap?
Then get in line.
Really? Thanks! Sometimes I feel like the minority around here.
I’m not all that bothered, since I wasn’t planning on camping out or buying a PS3 immediately when they come out here anyway. So what if people are going to charge a lot for them? If you wait in line that long, with anyone else who’s that motivated to get one early, then it’s pefectly reasonable for you to sell it on and make a profit. It’s enterprising.
On the contrary, economists consider this very point, but still don’t agree that it makes sense.
This might make sense if there were lots and lots of game systems to sell. But there aren’t. There are only the ones there are, for the time being. They CAN’T necessarily lose any more customers then they would have already, because the same number of people will always exist who cannot get the system right now, utterly regardless of the price. They could give them all away for free, and the same number of people wouldn’t have a PS3 and so might opt for a different system.
Furthermore, if they can sell out at 1200$ then this means that there are indeed, people who are happy to pay that much to get them early. One might as easily argue that this is GOOD publicity, not bad: especially given the way people breathlessly talk about the ebay price. No consumers who wanted one at 600$ would have been able to get one ANYWAY. And when the time comes that there are enough, they will be priced at 600$, just like everyone wanted in the first place, EXCEPT that there is now a market signal that the system is so awesome that people were willing to pay 1200$ to get it right away. Now there’s a HUGE price drop! What a bargain!
The idea that there is ever an “equal chance” is, simply put ridiculous. Some people ARE willing to expend more time, effort, money, whatever, to get one, and there AREN’T ENOUGH to go around to everyone, period.
As I said, the only equal chance system I can think of is a registry of demand and then a lottery. But is that really fair? That means that someone who’s waited their whole life to get a PS3 has as much chance of getting one as a causal gamer who will upgrade when they feel like it. Think about that in the context of a different market: should someone who is thirsty really not have any better chance of getting the last bottle of water on hike as someone who’s not really thirsty but just wants to stock up for later?
And it’s particularly silly given the leeway that Sony has to set prices. As I understand it, they’re already selling it at a loss: 600$ or whatever is just a price point they arbitrarily (from our point of view) set. They could have announced that it would cost 800$ from the outset, and I doubt you would be screaming that it’s unfair. And yet, if someone else chooses to sell it for 800$ now, it’s unfair? That doesn’t make any sense to me.
You forget that someone also has less money, and that game system was going to be sold to someone regardless of whether the game scalper was there or not. There’s really no net benefit to society, no objective value is created, all we’re doing is taking the opportunity to purchase away from Joe Average, and giving it to Joe Rich, in exchange for money.
You’re also assuming that a person who has to take off work for days, uncompensated, will be able to compete on a level playing field with someone who will be compensated for that time. For every die-hard fan who gets a machine, there are 5 spoiled brats who got it just so Dad wouldn’t get yelled at Christmas morning.
I’m all for the free market, but when it comes to toys and tickets to fan events, I just don’t like the market being more important than the love of the product.
No, you have every right to camp out in the same line. Or perhaps you think they shoudl only sell to dudes who promise that “really truely, I am going to use the game system myself”? :dubious: Or maybe, “hey, we’ll save one for **Diogenes ** and Madd Maxx, instead of the dudes who wanted one bad enough to wait in line for it, as clearly **Diogenes ** and Madd Maxx are cool dudes and should get special treatment”? :rolleyes:
The “scumbags”, "vultures’ and “fucktards” aren’t the dudes that wait in line, it’s *Sony, * who wants the free publicity they get by creating an artifical demand. And, yet, it appears those in this thread who are the maddest are going to reward the “scumbags”, "vultures’ and “fucktards” at Sony by buying their ridiculous product. So, who’s the problem? **YOU ARE. **
Write Sony. Tell them you refuse to buy into their shit. If enough dudes do that Sony will stop with this crap.
I don’t see your point. There’s no moral equivalence to getting a PS3. Who cares what the reason for the purchase is? Are you saying the diehard fan is more “entitled” to it than the father who’s buying it for his spoiled kids? Who are we to judge who is more “worthy?”
Again, no one is forcing anyone to buy a PS3. And if someone wants it that badly, they’ll do the work to get one, whether it’s waiting in line or paying an exorbitant amount of money. If you aren’t willing to do either, then you must not want it that badly. And that’s fine too. No one is being cheated out of anything here. The opportunity to purchase a PS3 is available to EVERYONE. Whether or not one CHOOSES to avail themselves of the opportunity is another matter. It just so happens the work to purchase a PS3 is greater than normal.
The price is the price dictated by supply and demand, the practical outcome of DtC’s suggestion is that folks will pay people to stand in line for them , if they don’t want to do it themselves. That is really what is going on here, anyway.
I don’t know how you define objective value, but as economists define it, someone who wants something more than others do getting it is a benefit to society, period, even and sometimes especially if they are willing to pay more to get it over others.
Without the market, how would you really gauge “love of the product” in the first place? How would you determine that one person loves it more than another?
If Sony was smart, they wouldn’t sell them in stores at all, they would set up their own EBAY style site and sell every single one to the highest bidder, and charge for shipping and handling, thus saving distribution costs, adding s&h charges, and getting more money for each than they would at the current retail price. They can’t be happy if they are losing money on each sold that people are making money by reselling, money that they don’t get.
A coworker and I were discussing this yesterday. We’ve decided that Sony should just skip the middleman on the PS4, and just auction the first batch on eBay themselves. Why should scalpers make all the money, especially given that Sony loses money on every console they sell.
We were only half joking, though. Seriously- if Sony were to release the first batch with a unique paintjob, make them “collector’s issues”, it’s not half a bad idea. Make the cases metallic gold, and call the first batch the “Gold” edition. The people who really want the console before everyone else would have just as much a chance of getting a console as they do now- and it’d be a limited release version, to boot, when they won the auction. Sony would recoup a good portion of their losses. Everybody’s happy… well, except for the guys who don’t have a chance of winning the auctions, which is pretty much what’s happening now, anyway.
For the record… I work for Sony. And no, I’m not camping for one (although several of my coworkers are). It’s going to be a while before I buy one, anyway.
Curse you, Wee Bairn! 
This is one of the few chances the common man has to make a quick buck. As long as someone is willing to pay you for going through the effort to secure one of these games, more power to you for selling it for a profit. There’s a sucker born every minute, and two to take his money.
I’m in absolute agreement with you that whining about people buying consoles to sell them is pointless, but the shortage is most assuredly not deliberate on Sony’s part. If they could have had millions of consoles ready for this launch, they certainly would have. Unfortunately for them, production problems have caused major shortages, and it’s looking very unlikely that they’ll meet even their revised shipping targets. The console won’t appear in Europe until something like March next year. Their share price has been taking regular knocks as the production problems have emerged; they really aren’t doing this on purpose, and writing letters won’t make a jot of difference.