Slashdot Mirror
GameStop Short PS3s For Launch Day
GameSpot reports that GameStop will have too few units for preorders on launch day. Employees are being "asked" to wait until the second shipment of consoles to purchase units, to ensure customers can receive what they paid (and waited in the cold) for. From the article: "For launch day, preorders will be filled in the order they were received, and those who had a preorder but are denied a system on day one will receive something for their troubles. GameStop will give those unfortunate customers (as well as unfortunate employees) a free used game or DVD valued at $19.99 or less when they eventually wind up purchasing the system. Those who reserved a system won't need to wait long to find out if they can expect a system on launch day. Starting tomorrow, customers who preordered a PS3 will be contacted personally by phone and updated on the status of their reservation, the rep said."
A free used game? $20? that's not going to be a PS3 game then is it, so what can they get... a PS2 game? or maybe a fairly old DVD, doesn't seem worth waiting that long for to pre-order it. I wonder who is to blame here though, has GameStop just made a mistake ordering (or selling too many pre-orders before they knew the figures) or is Sony further cutting back?.. if so this seems very bad indeed for them
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
Starting tomorrow, customers who preordered a PS3 will be contacted personally by phone and updated on the status of their reservation, the rep said.
Hello sir or ma'am. My name is John Smith and I work for the EB in Silver Dollar City mall. We have received our first batch of PS3 and we are contacting the people who preordered early enough to get one from this batch. For verification reasons can I get your full name, mailing address, credit card number and security code?
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
On a second note, havoc on ebay ensues. There goes a good ebay feedback rating down the toliet.
I would respond to your troll but i'm too busy playing Gears of War and downloading a Rainbow Six Vegas demo while listening to MP3's in game and chatting to my buddies over xbox live using the 360 webcam.
- "Scientia non habet inimicum nisp ignorantem"
PS3 is only a codename. We've decided to rereleas under brandname "Phantom Game Console." It should ship within the year.
Enjoy your Eurotrip DVD!
Could be a coupon for $20 off "Duke Nukem Forever", when it's ready.
[Insert pithy quote here]
There was no "agreement" between Gamestop and Microsoft. Gamestop started taking preorders before they knew how many units they would receive. They were taking fucking preorders the day after the 360 was announced, months before Microsoft even announced pricing or ship dates.
Hell, Gamestop was selling 360 "bundles" on their website while preorders were left unfilled.
But hey, this isSslashdot, and you're talking about Microsoft. Reason and facts have nothing to do with what actually happened, right?
They could be phishing based on Wii preorders, or some other gadget people would have memory of attempting to purchase.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
http://search.ebay.ca/search/search.dll?from=R40&s atitle=ps3+console
I can't believe people are actually buying these preorders. I thought everyone knew that none of this preorder stuff was ever guaranteed. Ask the stores yourself, they'll tell you "that's how much we think we're getting".
sheesh, some people never learn.
AirSpeak - http://itunes.com/apps/AirSpeak
The shortages in Sony's production of the PS3 were destined to give the console mad headlines this week, much as during the PS2 launch. But none of this answers any of the important questions for the console's future; yes, supply cannot meet demand right now, but what is the actual overall demand? It's going to take at least until December 1, if not January 1, to figure out whether people will still be buying it once production starts to ramp up.
I'm beginning to wonder if it's even worth coming to games.slashdot.org between now and 2007.
People have been camping out a week ahead of time for PS3s here in the States.
...
...
... ...
...
Because they know how limited the supply is
The PS2 launch was absolutely crazy, but nothing like the PS3 launch is turning out to be.
Because of how limited the supply is
The Wii hype seems to have fallen off a bit but appears to be still pretty strong. Good thing Nintendo fucked over GameCube owners wanting to play the new Zelda or the Wii launch lineup would be pretty pathetic. Lack of online play for almost all games until next year and many of the big games other than Zelda aren't appearing until March or so.
How are Gamecube owners fucked over by having to wait 2 weeks for a game? And how is the Wii launch lineup pretty pathetic without Zelda? And what big games other than Zelda aren't appearing until March or so?
Wii hype has "died down" only so far as people are a little hyped out
Most people have spent the past 6-12 months talking about "When the Revolution/Wii will be released" that they're mostly conserned with going out and buying one now
Seems like the gaming press has forgotten the 360 is still around.
That could be because everyone who owns an XBox 360 is playing the videogame that is currently ranked #1 among games released in 2006 by gamerankings.com
Are you sure it's *not* Gamestop's fault? Sony has certainly blundered a lot this year, but EB/GS has turned into a very nasty little retailer lately and this seems consistent with my experience with them.
For example, every time I go into an EB/GS store around lunchtime on a Tuesday (release day for new games), the salesnerd has yet to open his shipment for the day. After he pauses his video game or stops gossiping with his friends, he recommends that I preorder next time.
Give them an interest-free loan on a readily-available item? No thanks!
I walk across the street to Toys R Us and buy it off the shelf, often for $5 less. It's sad when a crappy box store like TRU beats out a specialty shop in terms of service and early availability.
I understand that hardware is always scarce at launch, and the retailers don't make any profits from selling it, but if you're going to sell games, it seems to me you should take an interest in your customer's needs. If I were burned by EB/GS in this way after giving them a pre-order for PS3, I would resolve never to shop there again.
I wouldn't say that GameStop is entirely devoid of fault, but neither should the manufacturers be blame-less.
Would MS and Sony love to know exactly how many consoles will be available at ship? Of course! Shafting retailers because they weren't able to produce as many as they thought they would, is just bad business. But it's obviously not intentional. You could argue that they shouldn't make any estimates whatsoever, until much closer to release (or until they actually have the units created). That I can understand, although I'm sure retailers don't like that approach either. (Legions of gamers want to pre-order well in advance, and not wait till the last few days)
That said, the retailers must have known that console shipment estimates are just swags at best. You could also argue that the responsible thing would be to not allow pre-orders at all. After all, that's what Best Buy, Target, Walmart, and a slew of other retail stores do. The problem is that game stores want to have a way to distinguish themselves apart from the big-box stores, and cater to a user-base that wants and are used to pre-orders (for games at least).
So basically, I think everyone should share a bit in the blame. Manufacturers, when they know an estimate is really difficult to nail down, need to stop making promises to retailers. Retailers, when they know the same thing is shaky, need to stop making promises to consumers. And arguably, we the consumer, need the calm the heck down and live with the fact that some things (guaranteed pre-orders of low supply consoles) may not be possible.
-- jchenx
Hope the guy who paid $1600 for his pre-order system on ebay didn't already leave feedback!
There are 01 kinds of cars in the world. The General Lee, and everything else.
Stuff like this announced this late should do quite well to deflate some flippers hopes. Hopefully a few major accounts get "stuck" in payment processing (read: paypal) long enough to discourage this kind of action. Given this, there's nothing like the sight of the legions of pwned scalpers in the morning having to do mass refunds, wondering if paypal will block them, along with getting a potential ratings hit on ebay marking the person as a known scalper.
Now if there could be some regulation that would effectively ban this kind of thing like how it has worked well with tickets? Heck, you could even give Sony an incentive of some sort to catch these flippers and create more units.
If anything, Gamestop should have announced it later so that flippers would be caught blindsided and having to deal with the buyers that end up putting a few bad actors in the red.
In short, Gamestop did a service to consumers knowing full well that the consoles will be flipped since nothing barred the action. They also at least gave the appearance of at least delaying employee purchases as well, so dont fault them.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
I feel just awful for them. They take your money, don't pay you interest, for the vague promise that they will give you an actual product for it sometime in the unspecified future.
It's not like the PS3 is the first system this has happened with.
there is no need to sign your posts. this isn't usenet. your username is right there above your post. stop it.
ebgames updated their website sometime in the last few days, saying that they're not even going to be taking online pre-orders till the in store ones are all taken care of. http://www.ebgames.com/gs/ps3/ps3_signup.asp It sounds to me like they might not be getting as many as they expected, or maybe just being careful.
I for one, don't really care too much. I'm not actually getting a ps3 (not till the price drops by half), but as for the wii... I'd rather just be able to get into a line so that when my number comes up they'll send me one. My time is too valuable to wait in line for something I MIGHT get and I really don't mind having to wait a little while to get what I want.
If I were them I'd stop taking preorders entirely for systems. First microsoft breaks agreement and ships less, making customers furious at gamestop, now Sony.
Nobody is forcing them to take pre-orders for anything, much less systems. They do it out of their own self interests. If they take more orders than they con fulfill they have nobody to blame but themselves. Other stores didn't take pre-orders and are operating on first come/first serve... For all we know Gamestop did this on purpose to prevent customers from taking their business elsewhere even though they couldn't serve as many people as they would have liked to. If history is any example, gamers will continue to be too stupid to stop shopping at Gamestop over something like this or any of their other customer-unfriendly practices, so why Gamestop take advantage?
Of course sony isn't going to catch flack from the customers for this, because of the immediacy of gamestop being "at fault" in their eyes.
Gamestop is the only party that is "at fault" here.
Yeah lets see how good that "free" Sony service is before we get too smug shall we? Given that theres little to no infrastructure, and as recently as a few weeks ago developers still had no information about the Sony online strategy, it sounds a lot like Sonys PS2 online setup. Which is to say there wasn't one and they dumped the responsibility on each developer.
For the Sony Fanboys' sake, I hope I'm wrong. I suppose well find out at the end of the week.
I don't know how it will turn out, but when I think "online gaming" I'm thinking "multiplayer" not "endless offers for gimme-more-cash" crap like I see on Xbox Live.
Online multiplayer gaming should be free (aside from MMORPGs like FF XI and WoW, I suppose), that's what I hate about Microsoft's offer - basic online stuff like multiplayer is only for paying members. Enough monthly fees already!
But I say again, theres also quality of service to consider.
You can get free dialup, but I'll bet you pay for broadband dont you? Its the same internet, why shoudlnt it all be free?
Live is very affordably priced, and I'm happy to pay it for the quality of service I get.
Sometimes you get what you pay for. If Sony can pull off an Xbox Live level service and offer it for free, I'll applaud not only their ingenuity but their altruism. But I'll believe it when I see it.
Huh? Is this concept of used games with large margins being somehow a ripoff of both the seller and the purchaser still out there?
;-]). Should I somehow be disappointed by this because that copy of the game probably only cost at most a few dollars (including Epic's cut) to Microsoft? Or should I consider it a $60 value because that's how much I'm saving if I get the game for free? (For the answer to this question, see below.)
You can't base the "fairness," "kindness" or "value" of this free game based on the wholesale price of the game. After all, Gamestop is a retail outlet. If I get a free game from Gamestop that would otherwise cost me $20 to buy, then the value to the customer is obvious, regardless of how much they paid the schlub who traded/sold it to the store.
Let's say Microsoft sent me a brand new copy of Gears of War to make up for the fact that I went two weeks without my 360 because it broke down (hey, MS, that sure would be nice by the way
"Duh."
i can't say i have a lot of empathy for gamestop as a whole. they were overly-optimistic as far as supply goes, and basic human greed will always override common sense in any situation where a dollar can be made. but who i feel bad for are the actual gamestop employees. every half-wit person who walks into my local gamestop seems to think that the kid making $7.75/hr has some sort of magical ability to pull consoles out of thin air. i don't see this being an enjoyable holiday season for *anyone* on the front lines at a game shop.
One word: Battle.net
LOAD "SIG",8,1
"But won't that turn into some sort of brawl on release day?" you ask?
Yes, yes it will. And Sony will put it on pay-per-view and make enough so that the next system will only cost $99 at launch. God bless capitalism.
Shift happens. Fire it up.
And I would respond to your troll, but I'm busy play the 200 or so free xbox games on my modded xbox and playing against others on Xlink kai over the net, and listening to ogg files and watching xvid movies and running python proggies with XB scripts and DS Linux, and playing every console game ever made before 1995, and playing endless supply of mame arcade titles and infringing copyright and waiting for the XB360 to be as mod-able as the original xbox..... :(