| Dedicated gamers and people who want to make a quick (and likely big) fast buck are getting ready to fork over $500 -- or more -- to get their hot hands on the new PlayStation 3. PlayStation 3 goes on sale Friday. (Many of these people actually have been waiting in line for days ... even though they likely are to go home empty handed. Some of the lines wrapped around for many blocks ... again, even though the PlayStation 3 consoles won't go on sale until Friday. The individual gaming consoles were delivered to stores in FedEx vans on Thursday. Some of the people waiting for the PlayStation 3 want to buy the consoles for their own use or to be given as gifts. However, many people want to get the console to resell. Even before Friday's launch of PlayStation 3, eBay was reporting that the PS3 consoles were getting four or five times their retail price at that Internet auction site. At Sony Metreon in San Francisco, 505 people were in line and listed on a sacred scroll so that they could use the bathroom and not lose their places in the line. Sony guaranteed 400,000 machines for the United States by Friday and about 1,000,000 by the end of 2006. 2,000,000 units are expected to be available worldwide by the end of the year. Nintendo's Wii goes on sale Sunday. It retails for $250. Microsoft's Xbox 360 sells for between $300 and $400 and has been on the market for some time. Sony, through its prior version of PlayStation, dominates 70% of the gaming market worldwide. The company hopes PlayStation 3 will boost its somewhat sagging sales in recent years. |
Sony's PlayStation 3 hits the stores in the US
this Friday. Demand is by far exceeding supply of PS3 and gamers form
long lines, up to 3 days in advance. Interesting thing about PS3 is
that it sells
for around $499 while it costs almost $806 to make. Why? Because
gamers typically spend much more on Sony's PlayStation games once
they buy a PlayStation. This is very much like buying golf clubs and
spending a fortune on golf balls later. Same thing with PlayStation -
once you start playing they get you by the balls.
