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Fewer PS3 Units Tomorrow Than Hoped For?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the high-demand-low-availablity-high-price dept.

Gamasutra is reporting on the possibility that there may only be 150,000 - 200,000 PS3s available tomorrow. Kotaku has heard that this may stem from removal of the 20 GB units from the shipment to the U.S., though this is just speculation at the moment. Several bloggers have noted that their local videogames store has notified them of lowered availability, so it doesn't seem that this is outside the realm of possibility. From the article: "'Due to the limited initial installed base of the platforms, we believe the financial impact over the holiday period will be more significant for hardware manufacturers and video game retailers (such as GameStop) than for software publishers.' In addition to predicting a strong push for Xbox 360 products due to a shortage in PS3 supply, Sebastian also says the newly launched consoles may not have as significant an impact on holiday sales." A reader also wrote in to mention the cost that Sony is sucking with each of these units. Apparently, the company is eating about $300 for every PS3 sold.

7 of 94 comments (clear)

  1. Sony's Plan by keithpreston · · Score: 4, Insightful

    1. Lose Money on Each System 2. Sell less systems, create marketing hype 3. Systems become cheaper to make 4. Finally meet demand 5. Profit!!

  2. Re:Good Lord by EggyToast · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Even more interesting is the fact that I don't think I've spoken to a single person who is actually buying the machine to play. Everyone's just buying them to sell on eBay, for "mega profit."

    Which, of course, makes me wonder -- if people only want it to sell on eBay, who's going to buy it on eBay?

  3. Extrapolating by UbuntuDupe · · Score: 4, Funny

    So, at E3 there were going to be a million, then they had to reduce it to 400,000 a few months before launch. Then the day before, the announced there would only be 200,000. So I'm expecting them at about 6pm to say they only have 100,000 in retail stores, then at 9pm, they'll announce that due to an error some boxes did not have a PS3 placed in them before shipping, so really stores only have 50,000 or so, and then at 11 they'll announce contract dispute with retailers, meaning only 20,000 will be allowed to be sold, and at midnight they'll announce that the North American launch has been delayed until March 2007.

    Don't say I didn't warn you.

    --
    Apology to Ubuntu forum.
  4. Re:Good Lord by DoktorSeven · · Score: 5, Informative

    Thank you. I do not get people who think that by buying a product, they are somehow hurting a company. They've already accepted and budgeted the loss from a sale of a console. You're not going to hurt them by doing this.

    You hurt them by *not buying it in the first place*. They are *not* prepared to eat the total cost of the console, and therefore *not buying the console at all* would be the proper way to hurt the manufacturer.

    As for Blu-Ray, Sony is the one fully behind that. HD-DVD would be the competing (and in my eyes, superior) technology. Sony is trying to wedge BluRay into the market by selling their gaming consoles with this technology to artificially create a user base, which is reprehensible, and typical of Sony's evil marketing schemes as of late.

    --
    This is a sig. Deal with it.
  5. Linguo to the rescue! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny
    Hello,

    This is Linguo, the Grammar Robot. I see that you are trying to communicate with people on the Internet. After reading your message, it's obvious you either suffered a severe epileptic fit while trying to type or you need help making your message clear.

    Assuming it's the latter, here are my suggestions. You wrote:
    I knew this would happen, it too new of techongly, the parts for the ps3 are hard to make, and thuis sluppy is short, this could really hurt sony

    You probably meant to write:

    I knew this would happen. The Blu-Ray technology is too new and hard to manufacture, creating a limited supply of PS3 consoles and other Blu-Ray players. The lack of units for sale could really hurt Sony.

    Had you been coherent enough, Slashdot would have been blessed with clear but obvious statements that look like a desperate attempt to boost your karma. I hope for your sake that you were indeed suffering from an epileptic seizure and are smarter than you appear.

    Regards,
    Linguo
  6. Re:FEWER? by GrayCalx · · Score: 3, Funny

    Just make sure not to hook it up to your friend's real/positive PS3. If they collide the universe ends.

  7. Sony has more than just number of unit issues. by Drakin · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Today's the 16th. One day before launch.

    We finally got 1/3 of our (reduced) allotment of launch date PS3's in. The other two are who knows where.

    No launch games have been delivered, nor have any of the accessories.

    Sony, in it's infinite wisdom, seems to have given ever box it's own purchase order number. Which means that the carriers make no attempt to keep all the boxes together, which they would with a single P.O. number.

    So, we have 2 PS3's. No games. No accessories.

    Nintendo however has nearly doubled our launch allotment of the Wii.