Pre-order Playstation 3 sells out

The PS3 will cost an arm and a leg yet has sold out in a day for pre-orders at one games retailer.

Many moons ago Microsoft exclaimed that their Xbox 360 release would be complicated by shortages due to massive demand. Some publications, such as Joystiq, believed this was all fabricated in the hope that people would all rush out and quickly snaffle up a 360.

Reports are now emerging from the US that claim that Sony's new console, the PS3, has sold out in an afternoon. Gamestop, the largest video games retailer in the US, made this comment: "In some stores they sold out in 10 minutes, in some stores hours, for others it was the afternoon."

However, let's look at the facts. Gamestop has 3,600 stores in the US and each store has a minimum of eight and a maximum of 13 PS3's to sell. Let's say that each store has 11 consoles to give away, now the pre-order figure stands at 39,600 PS3 units sold. This is a figure that falls a long way short of the 400,000 consoles that Sony has promised to deliver on the November 17th launch date.

The bigger question here is why are companies repeatedly claiming that there are shortages which are quite obviously engineered by the companies themselves? Of course, the argument is that this strategy works - this news story is giving mileage to the Sony propaganda wagon free of charge.

Were you able to pre-order the Playstation 3? Let us know in the forums.
Quote Gordy 11th October 2006, 14:06
And how many were people ordering them now are planning on putting them on ebay for a massive profit....
Quote rupbert 11th October 2006, 14:12
Oh no, the Xbox 360 is in trouble now!

:/
Quote M4RTIN 11th October 2006, 14:14
its not exactly hard to sell out when i'd imagine some stores only have 1 console anyway
Quote rupbert 11th October 2006, 14:16
Quote:
Originally Posted by M4RTIN
its not exactly hard to sell out when i'd imagine some stores only have 1 console anyway

And of that allocation, two for every store can be purchased by staff.
Quote Swafeman 11th October 2006, 15:09
OH NOE!!!11

10 ps3s per store of the biggest retailer in the country? :\

surely there were more 360s? 10 doesnt seem a lot, at all.
Quote themax 11th October 2006, 15:11
To be honest Gamestop kept the whole Pre-Order deal under wraps. It wasn't until around midnight that an email went out to users on their mailing list of the Oct 10th Pre-Order for the PS3. And I guess some stores called their preferred customers about the Pre-Order while telling others "We don't know, but tomorrow we will have some info". I was able to get a Pre-Order in the Gamestop down the street. I was the Second Pre-Order for the store, which was taking up to 16. There was no crazy line, noone camping out since the day before (The first guy there had showed up 2hrs before the store opened). And even when the store opened only about 7 of us were there for Pre-Orders. It was different from store to store though, especially in New York City. Apparently Ebay has been removing any auctions for Playstation 3s from their site. Yahoo and Craiglist though still have auctions listed.

Don't let the Pre-Order thing mislead you. Because of the 360 debacle Gamestop only took the small limited amount of in-store Pre-Orders and probably set aside a quantity for Online ordering (in ripoff bundle style).
Quote DougEdey 11th October 2006, 15:12
how many are for the online sector of these stores?

Think about the Japanese market, Sonys home territory and they get only 20% of launch allocation.
Quote whisperwolf 11th October 2006, 16:49
Of course you could also see why gamestop have done the pre order thing this way, approx 40,000 preorders with a $100 deposit. thats $4 million for selling nothing, lots of loverly cash to go into a nice high intrest account for 2 months to earn more cash. the accountants will love them.
Quote DXR_13KE 11th October 2006, 18:38
missleading numbers and thousens of $ of profit for these guys once they put it in online auctions.
Quote Tyinsar 11th October 2006, 18:45
Just like new cars: Never buy from the first batch of a new model - too many bugs still to work out.
Quote Cobalt 11th October 2006, 19:32
This is even less impressive than the 360 sellout. MS had supply worldwide with higher numbers than this. If people moaned about the engineered shortage of the 360 what are they going to think of the PS3?
Quote M4RTIN 11th October 2006, 19:34
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cobalt
If people moaned about the engineered shortage of the 360 what are they going to think of the PS3?

probably nothing. nobody really moaned about the ps2 shortages and they wont about the ps3 either. its sony at the end of the day. to 99% of the public they can do no wrong with regards consoles
Quote themax 11th October 2006, 19:39
It's hard to tell. I can kind of see why there are production issues with Sony's inclusion of Blue-Ray. Microsoft and Sony are drawing from the same resource for diodes (or was it another part that both players use?) for the drives, so yeah that can cause a problem between both pushing HD-DVD and Blue Ray respectively (HD-DVD add on for 360, then a Standalone, Blue-Ray inclusion for PS3, and then Standalone).
Quote Bladestorm 12th October 2006, 05:20
Quote:

That looks messed up, auction ended with buy it now, buy it now $1,000,000.00 ?!?
Quote Stuey 12th October 2006, 05:21
Wow. That's a hefty profit for not much work.

[Edit]HOLY EXPLETIVE! I thought it was $1k not $1M!!![/Edit]

Anyways, how many people will buy a console from gamestop? People are going to flock to the large stores. Circuit city, best buy, walmart, target, etc. The large stores will probably throw the consoles into bundles with a game or two to raise initial profits knowing that people will bite no matter what.

Gamestop selling out is NOT accurate portrayal of events to come. A lot of consoles will be sold. Parents will buy it to spoil their children, fanboy gamers will buy it to brag to their friends that they were the first in line, and reasonable persons will purchase it as well for various other reasons.

The thing is, Sony is going to take a hit for each and every console they sell. If things go wrong or people are unhappy with their machines, sales will drop, support will drop, and Sony's going to have a debacle on their hands.
Quote Darkedge 12th October 2006, 08:37
Quote:
Microsoft and Sony are drawing from the same resource for diodes


Nope only Sony needs the blue diodes for their Bluray drive so MS has no supply problems this time round... only poor Sony

This is just marketing spin, and I've heard that up to 2/3ds of all preorders have been bought for sale on. Thats a terible statistic for sony really.
Quote Meanmotion 12th October 2006, 09:26
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gordy
And how many were people ordering them now are planning on putting them on ebay for a massive profit....

Every single one of them, if the buyer has any sense. However ebay are closing all auctions that start before a week (i think, can't remember exactly) before they ship because of their 'in posession of goods' rule.

As or the shortages being hype, i don't think we can really use those guestimates as proof either way but i think it's safe to assume there's a lot of 'marketting' involved.
Quote otispunkmeyer 12th October 2006, 10:39
Darkedge - i though HD-DVD also used blue diodes for the lasers too? or am i wrong?

not the same as blu-ray maybe, but im sure its not a red laser diode
Quote Stuey 12th October 2006, 22:34
Quote:
Originally Posted by DXR_13KE
http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=212 :D
Nice link. But... it makes me want to eat a pickle now.
Quote Firehed 12th October 2006, 22:38
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bladestorm
That looks messed up, auction ended with buy it now, buy it now $1,000,000.00 ?!?
From someone with zero feedback. Yep, he's getting paid. How stupid.
Quote Stuey 12th October 2006, 23:04
Hmm, it seems as though the buyer is selling a domain name with a picture of the PS3. Seems VERY sketchy as there must be some people out there who believe the auction is for an actual PS3.
Quote Havok154 13th October 2006, 05:49
*deleted by me* oops, didn't see the link to the VG comic above.
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