PS3 pre-orders

[Gooch]

I can understand if you buy a PS3 and a few weeks later decide you don't want it than selling it on Ebay. What gets me are the people who preordered the system with the sole intent on hocking it on Ebay. There were 6 of these guys at the GS where I preordered my system. Calling around on the Cell phones to other friends to make sure they could secure as many PS3 as possible for Ebay.

If I ran the company these people would not get their PS3s. I would be pissed if I was last on the list and one of these chuckle heads got a PS3 before me. Opportunistic greedy SOBs if you ask me.

Get a real job and let the gamers have their systems at retail price.

Supply and demand is the dictator here. If some poor soul wants to give me a 50% return or higher on hardware because they just can't wait to get it later, then I'll gladly take their money for it. it's how the world works, and it's how many working people make money. It's fucking called arbitrage.

[g0zen]

Really, this is market forces at work. You can say it's cutthroat, but hey that's capitalism baby.

[cka]

How would that save him $300? It's not like he's going to get less than retail for the system. He will have the $640 he dropped on the system back plus any profit. And hopefully the profit will cover the Wii.

I seem to understand his insane moon economics better than your logical earth economics.

It's not a guaranteed sale on ebay though (especially if there's a huge flood of them there, as the current trend of internet get-rich-quick schemers seems to suggest), so he may as well just buy the wii for $250 and games/accessories instead of buying the ps3 for $5-600 or whatever and just live without the razor-thin profit margins (which the majority of would probably end up going towards shipping in the end anyway) because of everybody else having this same starry-eyed dream of making above retail value on the thing and flooding the market.

best case scenario: he makes 150-200% retail on the console from some sucker with too much money

worst case scenario: either he sells it for cost and recoups his losses, keeps it and enjoys/doesn't enjoy it, or he's got a ps3 he doesn't really want, and is screwed for the cost of the system (esp. if bought at eb/gs, HELLOOOOOOOOOOOO HALF A GRAND OF TRADE IN CREDIT)

See, this is why I'm waiting until early next year to get mine. I'm broke as fuck right now, there will be hardware units in the stores (possibly/hopefully with launch hardware kinks worked out) as opposed to resorting to buying one on ebay for an insanely fucking marked up cost, and the good games are gonna start dropping after christmas anyway.

[kingoffighters]

It's not a guaranteed sale on ebay though (especially if there's a huge flood of them there, as the current trend of internet get-rich-quick schemers seems to suggest), so he may as well just buy the wii for $250 and games/accessories instead of buying the ps3 for $5-600 or whatever and just live without the razor-thin profit margins (which the majority of would probably end up going towards shipping in the end anyway) because of everybody else having this same starry-eyed dream of making above retail value on the thing and flooding the market.

best case scenario: he makes 150-200% retail on the console from some sucker with too much money

worst case scenario: either he sells it for cost and recoups his losses, keeps it and enjoys/doesn't enjoy it, or he's got a ps3 he doesn't really want, and is screwed for the cost of the system (esp. if bought at eb/gs, HELLOOOOOOOOOOOO HALF A GRAND OF TRADE IN CREDIT)

I still think the demand outstrip supply by a big margin, so I don't think it is risky at all considering that it should not be hard to sell it at cost ($600 + tax + shipping) even after Xmas because of Sony inability to make more consoles. At worst, you lose time standing in line and some posting fee from ebay. I speculate that we will see some insane ebay bids come December.

[Timber]

It's not a guaranteed sale on ebay though...

...(which the majority of would probably end up going towards shipping in the end anyway)

...again.

There is no way you could list a system within 2 weeks of the launch and not get the msrp + tax + at least a little profit.

And you always charge for shipping so there wouldn't be anything extra out of the profit there (just eBay & paypal fees).

[Razor Ramon]

Why don't you just put the PS3 on eBay for $100 and make the shipping like $800? You're only boned if you get caught.

[James]

It's pretty immoral to judge the ones who are going to put these systems up on eBay. For all we know, EBGames or Gamespot may commit the same brand of "thievery" by raising prices due to shortages. No one knows anything as of yet.

We can be pretty sure that Sony would level some heavy sanctions against them if they tried. There would be punishment for screwing with the price.

James

[Timber]

Why don't you just put the PS3 on eBay for $100 and make the shipping like $800? You're only boned if you get caught.

Douchebags over charge for shipping. I'm not a douchebag.

[Gooch]

Douchebags over charge for shipping. I'm not a douchebag.

Smart people shift some of the selling price over to shipping because eBay doesn't hit you with their fees on the shipping costs. Don't mistake someone for a douchebag just because you don't know how to increase you margins without inflating the total selling price.

[RoleTroll]

I blame the game stores. EB, Gamestop, etc. should either charge $1000 for the system or require you to buy a $1000 bundle in order to get a PS3. (Since the PS3 is backwards compatible, fill the bundle with whatever games are not selling, like Turok Evolution - a $49.99 value.) Better yet, the "commemorative bundle" - a PS3 plus a "limited edition" EB PS3 commemorative carrying case for $1000.