As if on cue, the vicious news cycle repeats itself. Just days after the PlayStation 3 made its simultaneously generous,
in the UK, and beleaguered,
in France, European debut, would-be savvy eBayers are finding it just as difficult to unload their wares as their North American counterparts did several months ago. According to
TimesOnline, "eBay's pricelist suggests that this time round the touts have misjudged demand." After looking up the definition for "touts" we realized this all seemed familiar ... almost like déjà vu.
The week after the PS3's North America debut we even geeked out with some
eBay stats and arrived at the scandalous conclusion that "next-gen auction prices fall as supplies increase." The problem, so much as it is one: UK shops remain well stocked with PS3 consoles! The good news: if that £425 pricetag was scaring you away, then try shopping
here.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
clo1_2000 @ Mar 26th 2007 10:04AM
Too funny
hvnlysoldr @ Mar 26th 2007 10:07AM
Maybe if they market them as custom made George Foreman Grills they can recoup their "investment."
jsn @ Mar 26th 2007 10:09AM
Misjudged could be the word used to describe Sony in nearly every aspect regarding the PS3. misjudged the market, misjudged the hype, misjudged the pricing, misjudged the developers. You can't misjudge poor sales though, they mean exactly what they appear to mean.
Jack of No Trades @ Mar 26th 2007 10:11AM
Why sell it if you will get less than retail value?
Ryan J. @ Mar 26th 2007 10:15AM
Does this surprise anybody? I've had my PS3 for a little while now, and I've learned two things: The PS3 is a spectacular Blu-ray player (the reason I bought it), and is currently a TERRIBLE game system (when compared to the XBOX 360 and Wii). Unfortunately for Sony, a lot of gamers also realize how bad this system is game wise right now, and put their hard earned dollars towards something else that is more fun for less money. Even if Sony markets their PS3 towards the home theater enthusiasts, there is still very little interest in it as a high definition player due to the format war and vastly superior DVD library. Sony is in trouble folks, and it's all their own doing...
FrankTheCrank @ Mar 26th 2007 10:22AM
It is THE MOST EXPENSIVE CONSOLE on the market.
This explains everything.
If Sony doesn't adjust the price to something the masses can afford, this is going to be the same story for a while.
If the PS3 were $299, this would be a totally different story.
PRICING IS EVERYTHING.
JJ @ Mar 26th 2007 10:23AM
Well i wouldnt say it s a terrible game system Ryan, I play mine more than my wii at this point.
But then I guess everyone ahs different tastes.
sheppy @ Mar 26th 2007 10:48AM
Well, now that I've finally busted through GOW2, I'm looking back at PS3 for some Gundam Musuo....
Jose Siucho @ Mar 26th 2007 10:49AM
OWNED!!!!!!!
Diman @ Mar 26th 2007 10:52AM
Terrible gaming system is subjective, a fanboy would say that for the most part. Yes it does lack games, but there are few that are pretty good, not to mention Arcade games. Until the AAA games come out, it will be the same pattern.
The price is not such a big factor. You can sell 5 million in one day, but will you say the same amount of software?
dsr7997 @ Mar 26th 2007 10:54AM
It is to the point now that if and when the XBOX360 "Elite" does come out I will gladly trade my PS3 for one. At least then I would be able to sysem link some Gears of War.
neale @ Mar 26th 2007 11:00AM
i work in asda, our equivlent of wal-mart( who also own asda). the ps3 came out on the friday. at about 5pm saturday i saw a kid and his mum walking out with one. dont think theyre selling it well. i dont think there is any demand. if u want one, you can get it
for my 360, i hunted the whole of my city and could only find a core until exactly 4 weeks later i got lucky with a premium
Josh* @ Mar 26th 2007 11:03AM
Haha, sweet! £20 discount for buying online?!
JJ @ Mar 26th 2007 11:04AM
Also i have to wonder what those ebayers expected? With sony releasing over a million units overseas, most who want one, can find one without having to pay premium Ebay prices, personally i think anyone who pays MORE than retail for a video game system, no matter how in demand it is, is a little off balance.
Slaziman @ Mar 26th 2007 11:06AM
Haha, in your face lame ass scalpers. Dutch e-bay puts them under retail (lowest 500 euro) or at retail. I couldn't find any of them priced above 600, or any of them having a bid. Owned.
mccomber @ Mar 26th 2007 11:08AM
Um... Sony shipped 1million units. Of course they're selling for less than retail on ebay, why would someone buy from random shady dude on ebay when they can walk into a store to buy one? If they'd shipped 300,000 like MS did, then I think we'd have seen sellouts and crazy ebay prices like so many are expecting for some reason.
arthur dent @ Mar 26th 2007 11:12AM
check out this article on some interesting speculations for the PS3 high price point...
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=23708
Dolla Dolla @ Mar 26th 2007 11:13AM
Wow.
I thought they would've learned from the US launch. Guess not.
sheppy @ Mar 26th 2007 11:22AM
@16
Doubtful. You see, mccomber, the press and media right now are having rather hard times saying anything nice about PS3. I expect this pattern to continue until at least the christmas season. Then, hopefully we'll start seeing a turn around. But at this point in the game, PS3 could be solid gold, never lock up, deliver killzone 2 level graphics, and still the media and press would say "PS3 is teh phailz, lawl!"
My friends and I are all amused by this. Looks like gaming media has found their N-Gage 2. They'll continue to lawd all the bad news while blatantly ignoring or spinning the good news. After all, have we heard ANYTHING about attach rates since launch? No?!? They are improving, drastically I might add. After all, Nintendo fanboys love applauding consoles sold of Wii versus PS3 but according to NPD numbers for February, the attach rates are matched (actually, Wii went up from 2.1 to 2.3 and PS3 went down 2.7 to 2.4). I expect that to increase in March considering the number of PS3 games dropped versus Wii. But we don't hear about attach rates anymore. Even when Webbush filed a report that they expect PS3 to break the 3.0 mark this month.
Tim @ Mar 26th 2007 11:32AM
I tried buying one that was underpriced like this and the guy wouldn't take my PayPal. Instead he wanted me to send a money order, which sounded fishy to me so I passed. I think there might be some slight scammage going on.
DrXym @ Mar 26th 2007 11:35AM
Stupid eBayers should learn the principles of supply vs demand. Sony said they were dropping 1 million PS3s on Europe. A sensible person, a person with a brain in their head would realise that will be so many PS3s that no one would be insane enough to buy from someone eBay. It would be different if Sony were only dropping 150,000 but they didn't.
Slaziman @ Mar 26th 2007 11:37AM
When Super Paper Mario comes out the Wii's attach rate will go up by 1.0, who DOESN'T want some Paper Mario love in this drought? :[
Slaziman @ Mar 26th 2007 11:38AM
By the way the Wii has shipped more than one million to Europe and it's still selling out, just saying.
gtpunch @ Mar 26th 2007 11:40AM
"Why sell it if you will get less than retail value?"
@Jack of No Trades - because they bought it with the intention of selling it on (at a profit), and are now forced to sell them at less than retail to cut their losses. Not selling them at all would be more of a loss.
Matt Smylie @ Mar 26th 2007 11:42AM
I just bought my 60GB US PS3 last week on eBay for $503 shipped. Yay, me!
I really don't understand all the hate. It's a great machine, and I've been playing the crap out of Oblivion, Gripshift, Minna no Golf 5, etc.
rfom @ Mar 26th 2007 11:57AM
Why is this a surprise? As a buyer, if I can buy it from any store, I would DEMAND a discount to buy it from ebay (to account for possible damage / fraud)
Why dont you just give credit to Sony from carrying out one launch well, even if they were late! All those shootings and scalping happens only with the usual shoddy launches where consoles are in short supply.
smco @ Mar 26th 2007 11:58AM
When supply exceeds demand, prices will drop. It's economics, baby!
Anonymous @ Mar 26th 2007 12:35PM
One UK online retailer has already dropped the price by £25, it's down to £399.99 delivered now;
http://dvd.co.uk/product_PSP360GB.asp
There's plenty available in stores, I don't know whether that's because they just had plenty of stock to begin with, or they just arent moving any (maybe both).
They don't appear to be attracting much attention in my town though.
MysticX @ Mar 26th 2007 12:37PM
Why don´t I find this surprising? Anyways, any europeans selling their NTSC Wii´s? I´m starting to dislike PAL Wii!
jayen @ Mar 26th 2007 12:38PM
@sheppy, just wondering whether the attach rates count Wii Sports being bundled with the Wii console in NA, and compared to the PS3 where gamers are forced to buy a game to play with the console?
Todd @ Mar 26th 2007 12:42PM
"Selling PS3's for cheap! Come and get them! Hot off the truck."
Adam @ Mar 26th 2007 12:43PM
Where is Sheppy. I have been waiting to laugh in his face about all the smack he was talking last week. "hey its going to sell out guys, you'll see".
Joe @ Mar 26th 2007 12:55PM
The best thing about the Euro PS3 launch was all the MS guerilla marketing. It sounds like the world is listening! Cheers mates! See you guys on XBLive!
CaptNink @ Mar 26th 2007 1:03PM
@ rfom
"All those shootings and scalping happens only with the usual shoddy launches where consoles are in short supply."
That's funny, I seem to remember that shootings only occured during the PS3 launch.
hahnchen @ Mar 26th 2007 1:07PM
http://ukresistance.co.uk/ puts this across with so much more panache.
rfom @ Mar 26th 2007 1:12PM
"That's funny, I seem to remember that shootings only occured during the PS3 launch."
Because of the anticipated shortages in North America. So, essentially, Sony learned..whiel M$ continues to turn out its defective consoles!!
Slaziman @ Mar 26th 2007 1:38PM
Wii was in much higher demand and there were no shootings... :O
denney @ Mar 26th 2007 1:41PM
I know its soo funny you can still get PS3s in shops whats the point in all the people on ebay charging more money they are not going too sell them.
interweb1 @ Mar 26th 2007 1:49PM
@sheppy
In reply to your attach ratio comment. I think this is to be expected as the average PS3 owner has owned their console for longer than your average Wii owner due to the PS3 selling well initially then tailing off as opposed to the Wii continuing to sell as well as it did at launch.
You've also got to look at the amount of investment put into the PS3's game catalogue in comparison to Wii's. IMO the only game with a reasonably big budget on Wii is Zelda whereas PS3 has Motorstorm, Resistance, VF5 and a couple of big ports that probably cost more than some of Wii's better games like Elebits and Trauma Centre.
Taking both of these points into account I think it's mighty impressive that Wii's AR is basically the same as PS3's.
The real knock out punch comes when you multiply the AR by the number of consoles sold in which case it becomes apparent that Wii's software is completely eclipsing PS3's especially considering the difference in resources put into the repective game libraries.
Any developer starting a project has to decide between the 360 and Wii as the numbers just dont support going with the PS3.
grey @ Mar 26th 2007 2:27PM
4. Why sell it if you will get less than retail value?
@Jack
they bought it because it was an over hyped console, now they have it and realize what a piece of shit it is.. they want it gone.
Matt B @ Mar 26th 2007 3:36PM
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/26261/Record-breaking-165000-PS3s-sold-at-UK-launch
mushiking @ Mar 26th 2007 4:03PM
you beat me to it matt.
owned
Jay @ Mar 26th 2007 4:05PM
Hey, morons...
"This wouldn't happen if the PS3 was [cheaper]".
Have you no brain? This has happened because Sony made more available at launch than they saw necessary so they wouldn't sell out. They said publicly that's what they were doing WEEKS before the Euro-launch!
Jeez - Sony doesn't provide enough launch-stock in the US and they sell-out: you all bitch. They provide too many in Europe and they don't sell out: you all bitch. Some whiners can just never be pleased: sounds like too many 360-boys and Wii-boys are here, you have no interest in the PS3 anyway so why do you care?
Jay @ Mar 26th 2007 4:08PM
Oh, and by the way, figures just released show that the PS3 sold more units in its first weekend in the UK than the WeeWee. 165,000 to 105,000.
SquirrelPhister @ Mar 26th 2007 4:34PM
don't these people remember what happened here in the US of A last fall? clearly they DO have access to the internet
graham @ Mar 29th 2007 4:23AM
yes yes yes i said it all along thank god they listened hardley any one bought a ps3 and sony are paying for their arrogance . make us wait four months after everyone else. well sod u sony if your one of those who bought a ps3 your just letting sony off the hook xbox 360 rules