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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. "
Now if only the prices would drop for the wii and people started returning them to stores so I could find one.
I liked the disclaimers on hard-numbers etc, but it did give an idea of what the retail action is as well as the charting of prices. For those who want to wait until prices fall on the PS3, I suggest checking the price curves on the PS2. Here's a hint: They didn't move for over a year. You've got a long - LONG wait. Sony after taking a loss on intitial units will take the profits on the hardware as long as they can when they emerge.
Still - cheaper than the Atari 2600 / VCS on an inflation adjusted dollar bla bla bla. All I know is it can knock 4000 dollars worth of computers I have sitting in front of me out of the ballpark graphicswise. Once some decent games emerge I'll be heading to the retailer myself to get one. Probably around the time I finish Zelda for the Wii (geez it's huge).
Last week Amazon had randomly selected interested people to buy a Wii and the odds of getting one was listed. Getting a Wii was 28 to 1. Getting hemorrhoids was 25 to 1. At that point, I wasn't getting a Wii since I knew what I would get first. Now where's that Preparation H?
I work for a major electronics retailer, and we had originally sold our systems in bundles only for approx. $1200 each, with later bundles around the $900 range. We are getting approx. 10 of these bundles being returned a day. We started getting the majority of them after December 20th or so., which would be around the last day to ship from eBay. We are acepting these items back for return, but alot of the folks who bought them on the 17th are stuck with a $1200 store credit.
All the scalpers are mostly saying that "We didn't need it", "We got 2 for christmas", etc. One guy I talked to was honest and told me he bought it to flip on eBay, but the market fell out. Now he's waiting on a Wii to buy for himself.
We have lots of PS3s here at the store gathering dust (we got the largest shipment per store of any electronics retailer), people just aren't interested in them at all anymore.
Yeah I've been starving them, teasing them, singing off key. Me may mah mo, me mo ma me.
Well... just a couple of thoughts, but before I get into them, let me first say that I agree with you.
... They charge you a 'convenience fee' for web-based or phone based orders, in addition to their already inflated ticket pricing. I hate ticketmaster
As a someone who was 'marginally' successful at scalping my 2 PS3's, I have to say that given it to do over, I would. I had a good time, and I cannot put a price tag on the 'event' itself. I still walked away with a profit.
and I to do not understand why Sony (and really anyone else) doesn't just sell the items themselves. But I believe it has alot to do with law than anything to do with business.
See, it kinda comes down to the same thing with automobiles, atleast here in the states. Technically speaking you, as a customer, cannot buy directly from the manufacturer, for nearly anything. In order for you to purchase item X, the seller has to pay certain fees within it's respective location, think sales-tax etc... . However, getting into a larger issue is that the states (individually) don't want you to be able to buy directly from the manufacturer, because it would cut out their 'inventory' taxes.
It really comes down to taxing the hell out of the product prior to the sale, as that is REALLY where they make there money. Continuing to take car dealerships as an example, the 'dealer' typically does not actually own the vehicle, oh they bought it from the manufacturer, but they don't have to report the buy until the end of the year. At which time any remaining vehicles (and sometimes this is done quarterly, but we'll continue to use annually) are then taxed an 'inventory' tax, and this is on EVERYTHING, not just the car, but parts as well. Its a ridiculous mess.
Now, thats for tangible items, talking about the concert is a little different.
Ticketmaster (again as example) has contracted with nearly every venue out there, to be the sole promoter of any event, which in addition to just about everything else, grants them the right to sale tickets. There use to be a competitor called Ticketron if I recall correctly that did basically the same thing, but at a much lower price. At any rate, a band's promotions and tour organizations are typically in cohoots with Ticketmaster as well, so it benefits everyone but the band who (as I understand it) get very little of the actual 'ticket cost' after all the fees have been added in.
There is nothing wrong with a band attempting to sale it's own tickets, but then it must also incur all marketing costs, venue rental (assuming one can be found that isn't under ticketmaster's thumb) etc... quite quickly becoming cost prohibitive.
Ticketmaster is a fucking rip-off!
think before you write, it'll save me moderator points.
But don't worry -- I have 50 times the retail price of a PS3 in a diversified array of index funds, taking advantage of the favorable tax-free and tax-deferred accounts, so I think I've got my investing in order...
Yeah, but how long is your dick? That's what you're actually trying to inform us all of, no?
We went through this with the XBox 360, but with more speculators. People were trying to unload those things on eBay for months, finally at prices below retail.
If I remember correctly the 360's were selling at a premium on e-bay well into the spring. I think that the point of this article is that we've barely passed X-Mas and the prices are already down around retail, which probably implies low demand. In other words, sony is screwed.
Top 10 Reasons To Procrastinate
10.
30k? If you're going to brag about having 30k invested in various funds, I hope to god that you're under 20 years old.