180 PS3s stolen in Japan

Author: Brett Thomas
Published: 6th December 2006
Comments (13) Stumble
180 units have been stolen from a Japanese warehouse, with a street price of well over $100,000 USD.

180 units have been stolen from a Japanese warehouse, with a street price of well over $100,000 USD.

A note from the News Desk: This story has been modified to reflect some new information.

The madness continues - after robberies, muggings, shootings and tramplings on launch day, the PS3 continues to make headlines thanks to notorious entrepeneurs. This time, some slick guys with sticky fingers nabbed 180 units from a Japanese warehouse.

The consoles were stolen from the Meitetsu transport company's Ibaraki warehouse in Naka City, where they were being housed before going en-route to retailers. Few details have been released about the incident aside from the company and the fact that it happened overnight on December 5th.

If you figure that the units will likely end up on auctions like ebay, where prices are between $800 and $1,200 USD per console, the theft has a street value of approximately $144,000-216,000 USD.

Such a theft is not likely to stop at ebay charges, however. The number of units stolen puts a pretty steep dent in availability if you were one of the people budgeted to receive them. The final destination for the consoles (US or Japan) has so far remained unreleased, so which market will be affected more is still undetermined. But hey, at least nobody died this time.

Got a thought on the robbery? How about the problems it may cause for people wanting to come by an honest unit at a fair price? Let us hear about it in our forums.
Quote DougEdey 6th December 2006, 15:24
They produce 225 in a week? So thats, 45/d in a 5 day week, which means that they have 45 people working on them making one a day!
Quote rupbert 6th December 2006, 15:28
225 a week? Surely not?
Quote Fly 6th December 2006, 15:30
225 a week, is just under 12000 a year. I think that number might be a bit wrong. lol.
Quote Matkubicki 6th December 2006, 15:31
No wonder it was late if it took them nearly 35 years to make the 400,000 they had for the US launch!!
Quote mclean007 6th December 2006, 15:33
Yeah, 225 a week is clearly wrong. If it were true, then to manufacture 10 million units (Sony's stated goal for its installed user base by the end of 2007) would take 44,444 weeks, i.e ~855 years! I guesstimate manufacturing capacity is running at somewhere in the order of 100,000 per week, with a view to ramping up in the New Year when Europe comes online.
Quote Firehed 6th December 2006, 15:41
Quote:
Originally Posted by Matkubicki
No wonder it was late if it took them nearly 35 years to make the 400,000 they had for the US launch!!
They launched with less than half that... I'd heard as low as 125k.

So... 180... that's like 10% of the market, right? Well, from how disappointed many owners have been, it's not a huge loss :p
Quote trailblazer 6th December 2006, 15:56
Linking to the original article, that says that 180 units was 80 percent of this weeks production run, since this was supposed to have happened yesterday, that might mean that 180 units was 80 percent of what had been produced so far this week. No one got hurt anyway, but it helps to keep the prices up there.
Quote Da Dego 6th December 2006, 16:01
Hey guys, the 225/week thing IS a bit odd - I didn't clarify my thoughts well in the original article. I've edited since then, I was thinking along the lines of trailblazer's thought above but honestly I'm not really sure of Engadget's official meaning. I'm trying to check into it now, but for the moment we'll work with trailblazer's definition of 80% of what's been produced this week. :)

Regardless, I bet it will still have a pretty strong market effect...we're not that far out from the holidays, losing even that percentage of your production could cause some issues. What do you guys think?
Quote Fly 6th December 2006, 16:05
I think it may have financial repercussions. Increasing cost to us as security has to be stepped up and paid for by somebody.
Quote Da Dego 6th December 2006, 16:20
From Engadget...

"Haha...yeah, that figure was a joke." :p Striking from the news now. Please resume regular discussion and forget that some days I'm an idiot. At least I cited them, so I'm not totally braindead. :)

My apologies, everyone.
Quote DXR_13KE 6th December 2006, 19:53
i can only think of: LOL PWND
Quote Stuey 6th December 2006, 20:15
Quote:
Originally Posted by DXR_13KE
i can only think of: LOL PWND
How is a company pwnd when they have a shipment stolen??

180 units? In the long run, it doesn't really matter. Out of the thousands that want one and can't get one anytime soon, adding 180 would be recipients to the lot isn't anything tragic.
Quote DXR_13KE 6th December 2006, 22:26
when i say "LOL PWND" i am trying to imply that with the weak supply sony has of PS3 and the fact that someone stole something rare and "important", for their business, that was in a warehouse that should have some kind of security, they were really PWND, sorry, they should be more careful with their "important" stock.

and considering that they are loosing money with each PS3......
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