PS3 Pre-Orders Came and Went

Warlock7 writes "Well, it's official. The pre-orders have begun ... and mostly ended. I just got mine ordered and four hours later there are already units on eBay. Some acutions have already gone north of $1000 USD. The guys at EBGames told me that the most units going to any one store was 36 and that there were an average of 8 units being distributed to each store. The one I went to reported that they were going to be getting a total of 16 units. They waited this long to take pre-orders because they wanted to be sure that they weren't going to get burned like they did for the XBox 360 launch." The reports from across the internets are varied, with long lines netting nothing for some, and others reaping the sweet rewards.

Comments

Its silly to get a console on release

[tont0r]

How many consoles have we gone through that had problems on release? Everything from the DS Lite cracking, to the xbox controllers being the size of a small gorilla, to the xbox360 over heating, to faulting dvd roms of the ps2. Its almost at the point where its guaranteed to have a flaw in it. And i feel worse for people who buy it on ebay at an extra $500/pop.

And with all these horrid rumors of design flaws with the ps3, its more of a reason to just wait it out. Same with the Wii. I refuse to believe that 6 months down the line, they are going to come up with a much more accurate wiimote than the have now.

Re:Its silly to get a console on release

[HappySqurriel]

Personally, I have only ever had a single problem with a Nintendo made product and that was I got a disc-read error on my launch Gamecube about 8 months after I bought it. My dealings with Nintendo's customer service about my broken Gamecube were so good that I have no worries about buying a Wii at launch; essentially, Nintendo just told me where to drop off the Gamecube and they shipped a refurbished Gamecube overnight to their Depot so I only had 1 day without my gamecube.

The PS3, on the other hand, I would be worried about mainly because I have had bad experiences with Sony's customer service in the past and the PS3 has a first generation optical disc drive in it; my memories of first generation CD-RW and DVD/DVD-RW drives tells me that the most you can really expect from a drive like this is (about) 12 months of usage. I never want to have another system (like my PS2) where I own it for 13 months and have to go buy a brand new system (at full price) because of a disc-read error.

Re:Its silly to get a console on release

[DrXym]

Anyone who buys a console on day 1 needs their head examined. Aside from bragging rights, or sell the thing on ebay, what is the point? If a console is THAT GOOD, it will be just as good a few months down the road. Then you can make an informed purchase decision in the absence of hype and with a good chance of getting a replacement if the thing turns out to be broken.

This applies equally to the Wii, or any other shiny overhyped piece of kit (e.g. anything made by Apple). Never buy version 1.0 of anything

Pre-orders are a scam

[The_Pariah]

GameStop now takes your $100, puts it in the bank, gets mad interest off of your cash and another 400,000 reservations, and you're left with nothing. Instead of just having customers pay when the product is physically here.... Sorry, but I want a product when I put cash down.

Re:Pre-orders are a scam

[ChildeRoland]

The entire continent is getting 400k units. GameStop/EB is not going to get them all. Best Buy, Circuit City, WalMart, and more will be selling them without preorders.

It's not really a scam to me. The way I see it, I am forfeiting the interest from that $100 in exchange for a) waiting outside in the chilly October cold rather than the frigid November cold and b) not having to wait for more than 24 hours outside.

Re:Pre-orders are a scam

[thefirelane]

The product launch is about a month away, you put down $100. Lets say you could get 4.40% (currently what I get on savings). ($100*.044)/12 = .36 So you are paying a .36 "fee" to be certain to get a system. Ripoff? hardly.

Uh... what?

[ack154]

Some acutions have already gone north of $1000 USD.

No they haven't.

The linked auction search only shows LISTED auctions for the PS3. The starting bids for a couple are $1000 or more. NONE of them (as of this post) have any bids.

Heh

[Iamthefallen]

They waited this long to take pre-orders because they wanted to be sure that they weren't going to get burned like they did for the XBox 360 launch.

Allow me to express some mild scepticism, but I predict shortages and many unfulfilled pre-orders.

Thank You, Beta Testers

[thatguywhoiam]

We are pleased that so many of you have volunteered your hard-earned time and money to be the first to work out all the kinks in this first generation of PlaysDISK READ ERROR

Rewards?

[Daemonstar]

reaping the sweet rewards.

Wait, so, standing in line in order to get something that you're just going to resell to get more money while the person behind you wants to buy the same item for her kids for Christmas, and then realizes her checkbook was empty and has to leave, is a reward?

I guess on the bright side, it saved her lots of cash to buy other (hopefully less expensive) things for her kids.

Re:Rewards?

[chris_eineke]

Oh, stop it already. That story of the mom in line to pick up a brand-spanking new console for her kid is a hasty generalization at best.

Why don't you think of the hard working widower Dad that needs to work 12 hours a day to pay for his Son's cancer treatment and wants to make his son's life more cheerful by buying him a PS3 from eBay because that's the only place he can get his hands on one?

Won't someone think of the fallacy?

Re:Really over $1,000?

[drinkypoo]

People were paying almost that much for consoles in the previous generation, and inflation has marched on since then. A fool and his money are soon parted, regardless of how much money he might have - it's the amount of foolishness that determines how long it takes, not the amount of money.

Re:Heh...

[iotashan]

Camping in the same spot for nearly 3 hours... he's probably just afk.

I'll be your token troll for this thread

[Matey-O]

Okay. I've bought LOTS of Sony stuff. Thousands of dollars worth.

Trinitron Tube'd TV's
Disk- and Walk-men
Standalone home theatre speakers
nifty AV receivers
a Laptop
A Camcorder.
several pairs of headphones
countless Sony branded movies and albums, I'm sure.

And I'll never buy another Sony product again. Why?

Rootkits
Proprietary Media - MD, DAT, Memory Sticks, little odd writeable DVD's for their camcorders, PSP's oddball media, Beta, and now BluRay. I'm sick sick sick of the intentional fracturing of the market at the expense of the customer.
A Laptop installed with XP that _couldn't_ take SP2 due to a crappy memory controller.
Decisions for music players that just flat seemed STUPID (ATRAC?)
The fact they're betting the company on this one, expensive, item that has a cobbled together controller at a price I don't care to spend, forcing a media format I do not want.

Coupled with my moving away from physical media for entertainment purposes (I'll probable not get either competing format. I shifted from record and 8track to cassette, then CD's, from VHS to laserdisk to DVD.) I'm tired of re-buying the White Album, catch my drift?

Are you guys really falling all over yourselves for this company? Haven't they screwed you enough? (And by you, I mean the Customer)

Sony is an example of a machine that's gotten so large, it cannot move without standing on itself. I see no reason my money should reward it for its actions.

Re:I'll be your token troll for this thread

[oGMo]

Are you guys really falling all over yourselves for this company? Haven't they screwed you enough? (And by you, I mean the Customer)

On the contrary. SCE has delivered two solid platforms already, each with thousands of games, hundreds of those being of excellent quality. Too many to play, too many to choose from. This isn't what I call "screwing over".

Does Sony/BMG do stupid stuff? Yes. Does Sony Pictures do stupid stuff? They're MPAA---yes. Does Sony Computer Entertainment do stupid stuff? Probably, but less so. What they have done is deliver a solid platform with a solid library. Have they secretly funded organizations to undermine the Linux community? No. So, yes, I'm "voting" with my dollar; I may "vote no" to Sony/BMG, I may "vote no" to Sony Pictures, but I will "vote yes" to SCE. May they set an example for the rest of the company.

How about some REAL discussion?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't care if you're not going to buy the ps3. I also don't care if you're going to use the hypothetical money you set aside for a ps3, to now buy a Wii. I don't care that you feel so persecuted by one company that you take every chance you get to tell everyone about your Sony boycott.

...The mere mention of the word "rootkit" should not mean you automatically get modded "funny".

Slashdots games section is next only to Gamefaqs when it comes to trollish/childish behaviour. And now since I'm adding nothing to this discussion, I'll leave to start my own boycott.

Re:Heh...

[Karma Farmer]

Actually, "camp out" means to "camp" "outdoors".

The proper term to use for standing in line three hours is "standing in line."

Re:So get one here

[Psycosys]

Not anymore it's not!