In an article from September 27th this year, The Scotsman talks about a PSP shortage affecting the profits
of one of the UK's premier game retailers: GAME Stores. According to the report, GAME lost £14.7 million in the first
half of the year, due in part to this shortage. You'd have thought that today, 10 weeks after the launch of the PSP in
the U.K. these shortages would have disappeared. Unfortunately that's just not the case.
Today Joystiq popped down to a couple of local video game stores to check out the current situation regarding PSP
consoles. According to one quite frustrated GAME employee, the PSP demand still well and truly outweighs supply. The
store is apparently promised "100 consoles every week, in reality we get something like 10" — which promptly sell
immediately. The situation is similar in other stores in the U.K., with Virgin Megastores, HMV and other PSP retailers
still failing to meet the demand of the PSP. In a boost for Nintendo, the same stores all had DS consoles in stock.
With the christmas buying season appearing on the horizon, the situation can only get worse. Unfortunately for GAME CEO Martin Long, there could quite possibly be a repeat of last christmas? ??unprecedented breakdown? in the supply of PlayStation 2 consoles [which] led to sales falling by a fifth?, except this time with PSPs.
The GAME employee also gave his advice for how to purchase an Xbox 360 if one was so inclined. A faint smile of sympathy formed across his face as he said ?wait until after Christmas?. What?s the situation regarding PSPs and Xbox 360s at your local GAME, Virgin or HMV store?
