There have been 15 people sitting outside our local Wal-Mart since Wednesday night. They thought that it opened at midnight this morning to sell the PS3. I guess the management didn’t feel like telling them that was only at the Super Wal-Marts and that they would have to wait until 7am.
I’ll be getting the PS3, but since I’m not crazy enough to camp outside of a store since Monday to get one (WCBS, a news radio station in NYC, was talking about the hardcore gamers, a few of which had done that), I’ll wait for a bit and hope the price goes down. If I have to, I’ll get it after the holidays, and hopefully then it will go down a lot.
I woke up around 4:30am
Got to Circuit City around 5:15am
Saw around 50+ people in line
Meet with a friend, who actually works for CC
Entered through the employee entrance around 6:45am,
By 7:00am, i had a PS3 in my hand,
Around 7:15am i sold it for 100% profit (to the 4th in last person in line).
And for once in my life i’m early at work (Starts around 8, but i’m already sittin on my desk)
People are bidding on ‘nothing’ on Ebay. It really doesn’t mean that they are gonna end up buying for that price. Well some will…but why take risk.
Plus i wanted to be at work on time… 100% profit is not that bad overall… This PS3 thing pretty much paid off for all of my travel expenses over the FIRST season
To be completely honest, $600 for a PS3 is absolutely absurd. And I;m not even that impressed with the PS3’s hardware and graphics, the 360 is a year older and personally, I think it’s a better system. I even think $400 for an XBOX360 is still high, and all for a game. Also, I’m completely against getting profit for one after you purchase it. I understand that you put up $600 and get $xxxx.xx back for it and you’ve made good profit, but whatever floats your boat I guess. Technically, that’s scalping, which in ticket sales you go to jail for…so why does that not apply to here?
On a side note, I knew a guy in college, who somehow bought 8 360’s on launch day. within an hour of getting home, all 8 were on ebay and I believe each sold for 2k. For spending $3,200 up front he made $16,000 in profit, enough to buy himself a new car in cash. Even though that I’m against that…you gotta admit, that’s a pretty good idea. Lucky guy…
This is legal in many states. There are businesses and services that provide “re-selling” of tickets. In Indiana, you just cannot scalp on the property of the event facility.
I’m wondering how many of them are going to be ‘lost’ in shipping. I imagine there are more than a few hardcore gamers who didn’t get their PS3 working at package sorting facilities.
Re-selling is one thing, re-selling for profit is another. If I remember correctly, selling an item for originaly price is legal, but if the intent is to make a profit then that’s where it becomes illegal. Hence he resold the product to someone on the premises…wouldn’t that insinuate scalping? (if I’m wrong I’ll shut up, but I am curious).
THAT would be a smart business move for Sony… set the base bid price at X and let them go up… only release 50 or whatever, and then maybe release them a week before release in stores… create a scramble for them?
I think the whole business of waiting in line for 5 days to buy a PS3 is ridiculous. So many people have to be the first on there block to own something new.
If I was to buy a PS3 (of which I have no intention of doing) I’d just wait a few weeks and than buy it. just my $.02 worth gets off soapbox and waits for the flaming to start :ahh:
Well i was in line for 39 hours. i got the ps3 with my friend going halves. So we spent around $780 and they are easily going to almost $3000 on ebay. I def. think it was worth the 39 hour wait. Just let’s hope the next time i do this i will live in either FL or CA.
What these people are doing is distributing. They are on-official distributors of this product.
Distribution happens every day, in every city across the country. The company that employs the largest number of people in this country does the same thing. They buy something for one price, then sell it for another price. Like it or not, this is supply and demand… the root of healthy capitalism. Hurrrah Adam Smith!
It would be one thing if someone was buying out all of the bread and water right before a big storm as going to hit and then trying to re-sell the product for ridiculous prices after the storm tore up the town. Bread and water are necessity items, obviously. Buying a luxury item like this at one price and then selling it to a paying customer for a higher price is perfectly fine. No one NEEDS a PS3. The seller is providing a service to someone who was not as prompt and eager to stand in line.
I completely agree with you. When the PS2 came out, I had purchased one right off the bat and ended up having many problems with the console eventually forcing me to purchase a new one. I believe that many of these 1st generation PS3’s will end up having unforeseen problems that could not be worked out without the stress tests of the real world. That is the reason that I will never wait in line again to purchase a system on it’s release day.
My friends waited all night to get a Wii reservation a few weeks ago, I can’t wait to play that this coming weekend. The Wii is going to own the PS3 No contest.