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The Dark Side of the PlayStation 3 Launch
An anonymous reader writes "Kotaku is running an article prompted by an email from a foreign student in Japan. The reader unveils the sad reality of the modern gaming industry. Japanese businessmen made ample use of homeless people and Chinese nationals to obtain PS3s for re-sale. There was also a large amount of pushing and shoving, some fights, and almost no police presence at the most crowded stores." From the article: "Based on my observations of the first twenty PS3s sold at Bic Camera, they were all purchased by Chinese nationals, none of whom bought any software. After making their purchase, television crews asked for interviews but all were declined. These temporary owners of PS3s would then make their way down the street where their bosses waited. After several minutes, a dozen PS3s were rounded up, as their Japanese business manager paid out cash to those who waited in line for them. I witnessed a homeless-looking Chinese man, in his sixties or seventies get paid 20,000 yen for his services and was then sent away." Update: 11/12 05:40 GMT by Z : You're right. Sony only shares a portion of the blame here. Offsides on my part.
Why is Sony getting blamed here?
Congratulations, Sony. Nicely done.
Heaven forbid we blame the scalpers... or the people willing to buy a PS3 at a premium from the scalpers. Why would we do that when there is a giant corporation we can blame for the ills of society? Damn that holiday season, we are helpless against the dynamic duo: Christmas and Sony. Won't somebody think of the children (especially those who will be deprived of a PS3 this christmas?)
Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)
I don't see much of a problem here. The people who purchased had the money, theirs or not they should get the product. If I can afford dozens of PS3s and can afford to pay dozens of bums to stand in line and buy them, then I'll get dozens of PS3s. How can their be a law against that in a country that regards itself as free (Japan)?
I fail to see how Sony is in any way responsible.
There's not really any practical way of preventing scalping is there?
- float the price high enough to stifle demand (almost there already!)
- somehow make a PS3 un-transferrable (can you imagine the screams?)
- magically come up with more PS3s
- wait until the factories are running full-bore before starting to release any PS3s
Now, concert and sport ticket scalping is another story, but not I think relevant here.
Anyhow IMO blaming Sony for this -- or even really considering it to be a problem -- is pretty mistaken.
Some homeless guys don't get to play with their new PS3s... I'm crying my little heart out here.
Congratulations, Sony. Nicely done.
Ok, so Sony makes a product, a lot of people want it, some resort to unscrupulous tactics to get them, and somehow that's Sony's fault?
All this Sony bashing is getting ri-goddamned-diculous.
Don't get me wrong, Sony has done a lot of bad shit, and has been very arrogant when it comes to the PS3, but this kind of behavior should be attributed expressly to the consumers. Okay, one might argue that Sony created an artificial shortage (blue laser conspiracy?), but that's no reason someone has to be an asshole. It isn't a necessary product, so the fault lies almost entirely on the consumers.
Come on, Zonk. I'm pretty anti-Sony, too, but you don't need to redirect blame for something like this. There's lots of other stuff Sony has done to be called on.
It's amusing to me that folks have no problem with somebody dropping hundreds of dollars on a console, but hiring homeless people to scalp them is some huge crime. Obviously the homeless guys felt taking some money to wait in a line was a better use of their time than whatever else they'd normally do--they made out here. As for the people who hired them, well...would you expect Steve Jobs to mow his own lawn? Why should he, if he can afford to pay someone else to do it. And as for Sony, like any company, they respond to incentives: in this case, fewer units = more demand. If you don't like it, change their incentives by not buying their shit.
Actually... one could quite easily argue that there is nothing wrong here and that this is a perfect example of a free market working.
Person A is willing to spend X dollars on a system, but not the time waiting in line.
Person B is willing to spend the time waiting in line to buy a system at Y to sell for X.
End result: both parties satisfied.
The only flaw is that Sony should be taking the profit for this instead of letting third parties do it. Imagine if they used an auction-like system (hey, if google ipo can do it) then the people who value the PS3 most get one, and sony keeps all the profits.
Slashdot has just jumped the shark.
These Japanese businessmen should be ashamed!
How we know is more important than what we know.
Yeah, I don't see the problem either...you end up with 3 happy people. The homeless guy gets paid for standing in line... The middle man makes a nice little profit... The end user with lots of money gets one of the first units without having to stand in line (and these are probably the exact customers that sony will want to have their system - they buy all the latest games right at release instead of waiting for them to hit the bargin bin)...
WTF is uncivilized about buying something is underpriced and selling it for a profit?
WTF is uncivilized about hiring people who are homeless?
Man, you people have some fucked up values.
How we know is more important than what we know.
"Update: 11/12 05:40 GMT by Z : You're right. Sony only shares a portion of the blame here. Offsides on my part."
Oh, they only share a portion of the blame? That's awfully magnanimous of you, but just exactly why should they take any blame? What should they have done? NOT sold a PS3 to someone because they looked shabby? Should they have insisted on some sort of contract that the customer signs that promises to not resell it?
This is just shameful. Honestly, did Zonk's mom used to beat him with a playstation or something? The constant Sony-bashing is just insane. And it's not like you have to look real far to find something they actually DID that was wrong.
there is no need to sign your posts. this isn't usenet. your username is right there above your post. stop it.
No, it's called capitalism.
Artificial scarcity? They're having slow production. You think they only WANT to have this many units for the Japan and US launch, and push the Europe launch back so far? When Nintendo is launching a highly-awaited product at the same time?
This is not Sony's fault in the least, and it REALLY shows how anti-Sony these boards are with people actually claiming that it is.
The end users who buy from these middlemen are *every bit* as guilty as Sony or the middlemen.
Which is to say, guilty of exactly nothing. Guilty of giving a little bit of paying work to homeless people. Anybody thought to ask the homeless people what they thought of the deal? No that would make too much sense.
What a stupid troll article, the only interesting thing is how many responders took the bait uncritically.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
That said, it's funny to see the same fanbois that criticized MS for all of the issues surrounding the 360 launch (fights, eBay profiteering, etc.), run to Sony's defense when it happens to their console launch.
Fanboys? How about people who just think that it's absolutely ridiculous and nonsensical to blame the company? It wasn't Microsoft's fault, it's not Sony's fault, and it won't be Nintendo's fault at the Wii launch.
You can blame both companies for just not making enough supply to meet demand
Er, no, you can't blame the companies. They are/were pumping them out as quickly as they can/could. The blame here (if there is any in the first place) lies solely with the people doing it. Honestly, what are the companies supposed to do? Only begin to sell them once they have enough for EVERYONE IN THE WORLD who wants one to buy one?
I work for Sony, but this post is all mine and nothing to do with them.
/. account for many years longer than I've worked for Sony, but this story has prompted me to leave the site. It's just a little bit too much unreasoning, undirected hatred directed at me from people supposedly smart enough to know better.
Sony have taken a lot of flak lately, and it's probably been mostly justified. This, however, is the shittiest smear-job I've ever had the misfortune to read on this site. I won't be returning to the site after this post, at least once this story has run its course (so if there's any replies to this I'll answer)
How in the name of Zeus's butthole does Sony bear any responsibility whatsoever for the actions of people who aren't Sony employees? Did Sony direct these people to hire the homeless? Did Sony force anyone into doing anything, in any way? If a guy kills another guy so he can steal his PS3, will it be Sony's fault for making it? Of course not, all of these suggestions are absurd. So why attempt to shoehorn Sony into this, trying to heap more hate and blame on a company which already has so much you can fairly criticize it for?
Criticize us about rootkits, about batteries, about E3 presentations or too much hype, about perceived arrogance or copying Nintendo or making PS3 too expensive or not having enough of them, or about the quality of our hardware or software. You don't even have to make it constructive criticism, if you don't want to. But please, for the love of whatever, criticize us for those things we're at least partly responsible for! The actions of completely unrelated third parties aren't our bloody fault!
Anyway, enough from me. I've had a
Game dev and music blog
Yeah, what he said, greed and exploitation.
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Is ok to start a series called "Bum Fights" in the U.S and have some exec make millions on it.
Is NOT ok for a foreign person to hire a homeless guy to wait in line for a PS3.
I feel sick right about now.