Trouble in PS3 City and my own PS3 Conspiracy Theory

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According to the Hamilton Spectator, scalpers hoping to make a nice profit on their PS3s have begun returning their PS3s to the stores that they bought them from. Unable to make the profits expected from a short supplied item (whose supply turned out to be not so short before Christmas), scalpers are choosing to instead return their unopened systems.


Go Capitalism.


While it's never too early to declare the PS3 a failure, the $600 dollar price tag on the system reminds me of the ill-fated launch of the NEO-GEO console system. Vastly superior hardware -- truly arcade quality technology for 1990, but with such a hefty price tag against systems that cost half as much (TG16, Genesis and Super NES were its competitors back in the day) it was never able to gain much of a foothold in the market. I suspect that unless the PS3 price drops substantially ($150-$200) within the next 12 months, the PS3 will have priced itself out of the casual gamer market.


Here's my wacky conspiracy theory -- Sony deliberately has a shortage on their game system at launch -- the system costs too much to make, and with not much supply, and a ton of demand, the shortage of systems and their instant sellout becomes news -- free advertising (which is important, considering their PS3 commercial is really awful). Of course, when Sony realizes that instead of gamers getting their hands on this system and being evangelists for their next-gen console, but rather entrepeneurs making a quick buck reselling the system, and notices just how effective Thanksgiving was for Wii evangelists (by the time Thanksgiving came around, most of my friends had seen it, and my family had seen how fun it was), they realized that the shortage was hurting them get a foothold on this market -- they were not only losing to newcomer Nintendo (who seemed to also have a supply problem) but to the XBox 360. Realizing that the manufacturing loss of $300 per console was far better than losing the console war for the next 5 years, they release their stockpile of PS3s unto the masses (who balk at seeing the $600 price tag and turn toward the cheaper alternatives).

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