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The Decline of the PS3 Grey Market
Kotaku has a great piece up looking at trends over time in the PS3 grey market. Michael Fahey has been tracking the falling prices for Sony's new console, via sales on eBay and other markers. He called around to stores as well, getting a feel for the number of returns and current availability of the console. His conclusions: "As it turns out my gamer instincts and the threat of hordes of angry readers steered me clear of potential disaster. Aside from a couple brief spikes, there is no way I'd have been able to pull off the television, and I know damn well I would have waited for Christmas like so many others did, only to lose even more. The moral of this story? There's no such creature as a sure thing. The majority of eBay prospectors walked away from this experience with that lesson burned into the back of their brains. My suggestion for the future? If you want to gamble, go to Vegas. If you want to invest, try mutual funds. Leave the video game system buying to the gamers. We'll all be happier for it. "
We call that "blaming the victim" here - it's sort of like blaming your wife for pissing you off and *making* you hit her. I mean, if she'd simply put out, do the dishes, and not give you flak when you get home...
Besides, do you really want the culture that's blowing up everything to run things? I mean, unless you're a fan of removing just about every right from anybody with a pair of X chromosomes, killing anyone who writes anything that insults your "prophet", and views death not as something to be avoided but, instead, as something to be celebrated, with dozens of virgins and all that... seems to me predatory capitalism is better than THAT alternative, at least.