Playstation 3 Sells Out At Japanese Launch

s31523 writes "With its high price tag and stiff competition the PS3 was a gamble. Based on the reaction in Japan to the game console's release, there might be a new hot toy on everyone's Christmas list here in the states. According to the article there were 100,000 units [Z: actually, only 80,000 units] available and all were sold out in record time. There are 2 configurations currently offered, a 60GB WiFi enabled box and a 20GB non-WiFi box. The Japanese price for the lower end system is considerably discounted vs. the system to be released in the States." For a look at launch day, Kotaku has photos taken by Sony's Phil Harrison on the streets of Tokyo.

The very definition of "hardcore"

[antifoidulus]

Tomoaki Nakamura, 41, said: "I've been waiting for this day to come for so long. I'll play it all through the weekend. No time for meals."

Well, I guess that shows who Sony's demographics are, 41 year old men who put gaming ahead of basic biological function. Take that Maslow!

Re:The very definition of "hardcore"

[RonnyJ]

There's an even better quote here:

Apparently one of the campers called in sick (for two weeks?), and had to postpone his engagement to divert the ring fund to a PlayStation 3, while another guy quit his job altogether.

http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/10/ps3-hopefuls-pa rt-ii/ [engadget.com]

Re:The very definition of "hardcore"

[archen]

There's also a nice gem of a quote in the user comments in the BBC article.

since Sony has messed about with the European launch date, I have flown all the way to Japan to get my hands on one.

To myself I think - it must be nice to be able to afford to buy a PS3. Must be nice to be able to afford to go to Japan. Lots of things to see there like districts in Tokyo, shrines, Japanese food. Yeah, interesting that you'd just fly to Japan, get a PS3 then fly home. I'd probably sell the thing, but if you have enough money to fly to Japan for no reason other than to buy a game console, you obviously don't need the money!

Re:

[MouseR]

I'm sure it would have been cheaper to buy it here [ebay.com] rather than go to Japan for it.

Re:The very definition of "hardcore"

[BJH]

Actually, it's true - a UK travel agent set up a tour for a bunch of people to fly to Tokyo specifically to buy a PS3.

Re:

[Mr. Ksoft]

Hm, now we might be able to blame Sony for killing a man.

Re:

[bcat24]

I think we can do that already. [digg.com]

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Maslow's "hierarchy" of needs is, presumably, long-term. I often skip meals if I've got better things to do. My body can go several days without food, as can most people's, especially in the West/North.

(And as any knowledge worker will tell you, for any data problem, there's a hierarchical representation that is simple, clear, practical and wrong. Essentially any time you see a neat hierarchy, something is being over-simplified.)

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

You obviously didn't remember them very well then. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of _needs [wikipedia.org]

Re:

[An Anonymous Coward]

Either you're misunderstanding his tone, or I'm misunderstanding your tone. This is the way I read the post:

"LOL. At first I thought you were making a reference to the movie 'Real Genius', but then I realized that the name of the guy in that movie was Laslow, and then I remembered my Psychology courses...."

Re:The very definition of "hardcore"

[Meagermanx]

Maslow had a Hierarchy of Needs. It goes:

1. Playstation 3
2. Physical Survival
3. Safety and Security
4. Social Needs
5. Self Esteem
6. Self Actualization

Sony's Strategy

[d3ik]

1. Manufacture a ridiculously low amount of units 2. Sell out of those units at a highly discounted rate 3. MAKE NO PROFIT!! 4. Declare victory

Obligatory

[shoptroll]

http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=212 [vgcats.com]

No further comment needed

Sony Rhetoric

[dublinclontarf]

Sony are going to be touting the "fastest sellout ever", I mean, if I had only a single console to sell, and I sold it straight away, wouldnt that be the fastest sellout ever? I'm really wondering how Sony are going to do when they actually are able to produce more. Will the PS3 be a success?

Re:Sony Rhetoric

[Jerf]

Because the VGCats comic is inevitable [vgcats.com], might as well come from someone with maxed-out Karma.

(It is pretty good though. I love the auction in the background of the second-to-last panel.)

Re:

[Goaway]

Perhaps you should wait until Sony actually does this outside of your mind, too, before starting the posturing.

If they're so technology hungry..

[Channard]

.. how come only one of them seems to have had the sense to bring along a portable console to play with while waiting? God only knows what it'll be like when the store I work at gets these in. When the 360's came in, we had people qeueing in the dark from 9PM to 9AM in the morning - just to get core consoles!

Re:

[TrancePhreak]

They probably had to save all their money by not getting anything portable in order to afford the PS3.

Re:

[krotkruton]

One of my roommates and I have been talking about camping out for a ps3. Have you seen what they are selling for on ebay [ebay.com]? At those prices, you could buy two, sell one, and still make a profit.

$1400 for a ps3 on ebay? Assuming I'd spend about $800 on one with games and whatnot, that'd leave $600 for profit. 24 hours standing outside for $600 is about $27 an hour. It might suck (especially in the cold where I'm at), but that's pretty good money when you think about it.

On that note, I didn't think mo

Re:

[krotkruton]

From my original post: One of my roommates and I.... I thought it was clear that I was talking about the two of us each buying a ps3 and selling one, since we don't need two ps3's in our apartment, but I guess I wasn' that clear about that detail. Also, that does change things to make it only $13.50 an hour or so.

I am not surprised

[MemoryDragon]

The first one million consoles will be an easy sell for sony all over the world, this is basically the hardcore fans who buy everything, but after that, it will be interesting how the console will sell. You can see that with every major console, that the initial sales are high, there always is enough fanboys who dont matter how much it is for the console, they just want to have it.

And the real question for success

[Sycraft-fu]

Is (as always) games. Given enough time, any console maker will be able to produce enough so that everyone who wants one has one. However the driving force behind most people wanting one in the end will be games. Does it have the games they want to play and, for the games that are available on multiple consoles, do they look good?

Sony's problem isn't going to be selling out their first consoles. It's going to be making sure they get the games to convince people that it's something they need to have. That wa

Re:

[illegalcortex]

Please locate your disposable income on the bell curve for all Americans. As the other poster noted, you are an outlier.

Re:

[Daniel Phillips]

Please locate your disposable income on the bell curve for all Americans. As the other poster noted, you are an outlier.

Not really, unless you want to call everybody who plans to purchase a HD TV this year an outlier. That would be how many million outliers?

By the time the early adopter market gets even close to mined out, Sony will have ramped production and started the price cuts, just like every other console cycle.

Re:

[illegalcortex]

Not really, unless you want to call everybody who plans to purchase a HD TV this year an outlier. That would be how many million outliers?

Your logic is a bit problematic. How does your statement I personally won't bat an eye about dropping $600 on this box. After all, I'm picking up a $2,500 flat screen tv to go with it. equal to everybody who plans to purchase a HD TV this year?

Hint: To get you started, first look at the pricing of the models that all these people will be buying. Ask yourself - will most

Re:

[Daniel Phillips]

Most analysts (people who know what they're actually talking about, supposedly) aren't confident the PS3 will sell to anyone but the hardcore market.

Pray tell me, which analysts are these and how do you known they actually know what they are talking about? Reports from Japan indicate it is already selling to a mixed demographic. I am confident in my own prediction: Sony will sell every PS3 it can build for the next long time. Look at this site [ps3stocktracker.com], there are lots more like it. Each new shipment is going to

Re:

[Daniel Phillips]

Never met an LCD I didn't hate. After looking hard and long I just set up my brand new Sony 34XS955 CRT which took nearly a month to get from NY:NY to BC Canada. An epic battle with at least 3 shipping companies involved and a screw up every few days. About $2000 can total. It's just wonderful and no motion crap that all the LCDs do. Plays games ... well 34" of widesreen at 720p is a pretty cool Doom3 and Quake4 experience ;). Yup it'll do 1080i but the 720p seems to work well for games.

Agreed, a CRT is sti

Too Bad You Can't Get It

[heli0]

"there might be a new hot toy on everyone's Christmas list here in the states."

Is there anyone who ever doubted that the PS3 would be sold out until Spring? I assumed that with all of the stories about people planning to sell it for $3,000 on eBay that this was common knowledge by now.

Re:

[rolfwind]

Oh, I'm sure you'd be able to get it without paying a premium by the end of January. All it takes is some patience, which seems to be in short supply these days among consumers.

Don't get excited by the hype and you won't be shellingout 3K for a $600 system:)

Big freakin' deal.

[EvilCabbage]

So?

The Super Nintendo sold out 300,000 units.

Sony provide less than a hundred thousand to an amazingly gadget hungry market and it's now headlines that it sells out?

And in terms of all system sales...

[yeoua]

http://www.joystiq.com/2006/11/10/japanese-hardwar e-sales-30-october-5-november-incredibly-inn/ [joystiq.com]

Notice the amount of hardware sold... in a week... in Japan. The DS completely dominates with more than 100,000 sold in a WEEK. This is months after it has launched, while the PS3 has only 80,000 to sell. Now yes, the DS costs much less, but notice that Nintendo probably makes a profit on it rather than a loss, AND this amount of units allows them to sell more software.

How much software is going to move for the PS3 when it's launch is only 80,000? Most of those best seller games are in the area of several 100 thousand to several million units sold. That isn't going to happen for a while. So yes the PS3 sold out, but we can't call it any kind of success yet with this few sold. Maybe if they pushed out 1 million units and sold them all, then we can say they were a success.

How is this a success?

[aztektum]

They sold 80,000 units in a day! Huzzah! They can only make money as long as they have units to sell. Only over the long term will we be able to say that it was a success.

Of course this will just drum up buzz and people will pay some lucky bastard on eBay 5 times the retail price for one.

Of course it sold out

[Visigothe]

Considering every time Dragon Warrior or a Final Fantasy game comes out, they sell 2 million copies in the first week-end, of course they're going to sell 80,000 PS3s.

I'd like to see a breakdown of High end-vs-Low end units. Does anyone have those numbers?

Re:

[xenocide2]

So imagine you're Square-Enix. You know you can sell two million of your game, assuming there's enough machines to play them on. Would you rather sell your game on this new platform or would you rather risk long term sales and release for the current most popular system close to compatible with your game idea?

Re:

[Xugumad]

> risk long term sales and release for the current most popular system close to compatible with your game idea?

I'm confused... did you just argue that selling lots of your game now might somehow upset your customers, as opposed to releasing it for a platform no-one can buy?

Re:

[Xugumad]

I believe they were making 80/20 high/low units, and given they sold out, I'm willing to bet there was an 80/20 split in sold units. Sorry.

I'm Big in Japan

[rhesuspieces00]

EVERY console made by a Japanese company sells out at launch in Japan. The fucking VisualBoy sold out in Japan.

VisualBoy

[hsoft]

The one with games developed in Virtual Basic?

Re:

[illegalcortex]

Suddenly your other post I replied to is making sense.

Personally, I am not a fanboy of any console. As I posted before, I used to be a Nintendo fanboy but had that habit firmly broken by the N64. And if anything, I'm biased against the Xbox because it's sold by Microsoft. I have no reason at all to be prejudiced against Sony. And I agree 100% with the parent post. The PS3 would have sold out 80k units in Japan even if the PS3 was priced at $1000 at launch. Even if it was $1000 and smelled like burning

Re:

[Daniel Phillips]

I agree 100% with the parent post. The PS3 would have sold out 80k units in Japan even if the PS3 was priced at $1000 at launch.

Oh, that is obvious. But explain to me why the GP was swearing?

Re:

[illegalcortex]

Because stupidity makes him/her angry?

Every time a console gets launched, it's exactly the same story. And yet the media always reports it the same way, as if it's some undeniable sign of breakneck success. When in reality, it's simply intentionally supplying a fraction of enough units to meet demand so you get get the idiot press to advertise for you.

The REAL story is when a console maker can't manage this, like the case of the Xbox/Xbox360 failures. That's when it's actually news.

dot dot dot...

[Shados]

Stupidest...headline...ever. Am I the only one who's reminded of the VG Cats comic about this?

Man, who would have thought that japanese would buy out 80000 consoles. No way!

haha

[joe 155]

you really should check out the comments on the photo diary, there are some pretty funny comments and a little "spot the DS" competition going on. Sony's Phil Harrison won't be happy

The Big picture

[Dr. Eggman]

I'm interested, how big is Japan in the big picture? First or Second? We all know (if even just by how the companies treat them) that Europe is third most important. Anywhere other than North America, Japan, or Europe is rarely even heard in the news. But is Japan the bigger battlefield than the US? If we look at the launch numbers, Sony and Nintendo are both putting more emphasis on the US. Sony's US Launch day is scheduled to have 400,000 PS3 units, about 4x the number of their Japanese launch. Nintendo is planning a US launch day of 1,000,000 Wii units. Meanwhile I can't even find Nintendo's Japan launch day units; they don't even release in Japan until December, after the November US launch. So, the companies seem to indicate that in the big picture, the US is the bigger prize. Launching two days apart, with more units (assumed for Wii Japan) will make a much more useful comparison than a 23-day apart Japan launch with relativly fewer units.

It may also be interesting to see how Sony's launch titles did, since they need games and accessories to pull up the difference. Some of the games present on Sony's Japan launch list [1up.com] also appear on the Wii's. Depending on quantities of these sold compared to the number of units sold in proportion to other games per unit sold may tell us if there are customers prepared to buy the Wii as well and plan on buying those games for the Wii instead. While it would have to be a large difference to overcome the large margin of error such a comparison welcomes, it may still provide some insite into the minds of the buyers and give us a rough idea how the big US launch will go for Sony or Nintendo.

Wow they sold 80,000..... so?

[kinglink]

I could shit in a box and probably sell 1,000 units. 5,000 if I called it a console (aka the phantom).

Selling out at launch isn't hard. It's even easier if you only ship a fraction of what the competition is selling. Which is betterin the Wii selling out over 400,000 units in japan (which is almost definate) or the Ps3 selling out 100,000 units?

I just have one question? Why is this news?

80,000 - at rrp?

[goldcd]

LikSang could have shifted that

As usual...

[BJH]

...PC Watch bought one and took it apart [impress.co.jp].

Impressions:
- That's one huge cooling fan!
- Why did they use a Seagate drive, when Seagate is known for sucking more power than just about anybody else?
- Not as many components on the MB as you might expect for a first revision.
- The ATI RSX has its video memory on the module, but not in-core.

According to posts on various Japanese sites, there also seem to be a few problems.
- The unit gets hot. Very hot.
- A couple of people reported the unit powering off during the software update, which permanently bricked the unit.
- The browser can't play Flash.

Re:

[Daniel Phillips]

That's one huge cooling fan!

A larger fan rotates slower and is therefore more quiet. Engadget says After plenty of gameplay the console is cool -- or at worst warm -- to the touch on every surface. In a side by side test with the Xbox 360, the console is comparably virtually silent, and the Blu-ray drive is significantly quieter than the 360's DVD drive. [engadget.com]

Why did they use a Seagate drive, when Seagate is known for sucking more power than just about anybody else?

Really? This Seagate 60GB drive [seagate.com] eats .8 watt id

Re:

[seebs]

>- Why did they use a Seagate drive, when Seagate is known for sucking more power than just about anybody else?

I have not known this to be the case. When I replaced a Toshiba drive with a Seagate in my laptop, I doubled the capacity on 55% of the power or so. The Seagate drive in my games machine had about 60% of the power consumption of the WD.

I personally use them for nearly everything for three reasons:

* Five
* Year
* Warranty

Re:

[Mongoose]

Hey if you're going to lie at least get the specs right. The RSX is Nvidia, and the PS3 uses heatpipes for example. Thanks for playing! =)

Is anyone really surprised?

[jdubois79]

So, I decided to go to my local game store (Famicon Jungle) the other night to see the status of the PS3 in Japan (not really giving a crap, as I have my Wii on pre-order, but just to see what games are out and whatnot).

So, I go to the store, and there's about 3 cars waiting outside of the store. 2 have the geekiest geeks you've ever seen in your life sitting in them, 1 has a couple just kind of hanging out eating snacks. They're all waiting for a PS3 shipment that is apparently late getting to the store.

I walk up to the store and there is a big sign on the front that says "We are sorry for the inconvenience, but we will be getting only 1-3 PS3s, and they will be given out at a first come first serve basis." It was 9pm on launch day, and apparently they still hadn't come yet.

To give you some background of where I live: I live in a town of around 500,000 people. The surrounding area is all farms, so I figure within 20km of me, there are all of 3 stores that are selling PS3s. If each one gets 1-3 machines, that means that if one in 100,000 people decides "hmmm, I would like a PS3.." then they will sell out.

Calling that a victory is just lunacy.

Chinese people buying the japanese PS3s

[Zangief]

Kotaku has an interesting report. [kotaku.com] Apparently, some people hired chinese poor people to stand in the lines and buy PS3s for resale.

Re:

[Penguinoflight]

Not really, I can't see why anyone would be happy with sony getting 80k units out on "launch day". I'm pretty sure their sales numbers weren't as good as the numbers on xbox 360's launch day, they just had so many fewer units that they sold out sooner. The mocking won't stop here.

Re:The end of Sony bashing?

[shoptroll]

Does anyone remember how many units they originally said they were planning on having for launch? Selling 80k units in your home territory isn't exactly "news". Hell the PS2 managed to sell 900,000 units in its first weekend in Japan. Somehow a 92% reduction in the number of units you managed to push is "newsworthy"? Give me a break.

Re:The end of Sony bashing?

[William_Lee]

Hopefully, this story will reduce the amount of people randomly bashing Sony (and how their PS3 will "obviously" fail) for no reason. Right now I'm just happy for Sony and the rate of sales they've had. Aren't you?

Kutaragi-san, don't you have better places to be right now than the slashdot forums?! You should be working on production issues, better developer tools, and lack of strong launch titles...

Re:

[Adult film producer]

The nazi's have just taken France.. why don't you stop complaining about them and Hitler, just be happy for them .. just once would ya.

Re:

[Psychotext]

I'm really interested, so don't take offense... but why on earth would you be happy for a corporation? They don't give a shit about you, you shouldn't give a shit about them. I've really never understood it. Sure, stand up for and shout all about some small operation that needs the support but don't cry when a corporation gets bashed.

Re:

[HappySqurriel]

Hopefully, this story will reduce the amount of people randomly bashing Sony (and how their PS3 will "obviously" fail) for no reason. Right now I'm just happy for Sony and the rate of sales they've had. Aren't you?

The average sales for the Nintendo DS Lite in a give week are about 100,000 units ...
On a good week (when they release a highly popular game) the DS Lite sells about 250,000 units ...

Claiming that the PS3 won't fail because it sold 80,000 units in its launch week is foolish; hell the XBox 360 sold

Re:

[iamhassi]

those are in-game graphics? That's actually pretty impressive, maybe we will finally have the Toy Story graphics Sony promised for the ps2 [ign.com]:
"...we could see worlds that could equal what was in use in the movie Toy Story."

I'm still not buying a PS3, but a Xbox360 may be in my future depending on what the new games look like.

Re:

[macshit]

I watched some ps3 kiosks in a store yesterday -- one showing demo loops and one live unit with ridge racer -- and the graphics were actually sort of "meh". Definitely high-res, but that's about it really. The unit showing demo loops had some nice special effects in places (whereas ridge racer seemed pretty "last-gen"), but it was a really mixed bag, lots of low frame-rates, bad animation, weird lighting artifacts etc. Rige racer seemed like it could have been running on a ps2/gc/xbox (albeit probably no

Re:

[Guppy06]

"Unless it has a game where you can make little school girls dance to your music!"

So. Fucking. Japanese.

Dear Lord, does somebody havea rusty spoon I can borrow? I need to gouge out my own eyeballs after seeing that saccharine hell.

And I actually thought I was an otaku...

Re:

[Guppy06]

Oh, I did. It's just I didn't feel clean again no matter how much I scrubbed afterwards.

Re:

[hotdiggitydawg]

Obligatory VGCats [vgcats.com], on topic for once!

Re:

[metamatic]

They're just doing the same thing Microsoft did for the 360 launch.

Re:Yeah, Hot new Xmas Item...

[nugx]

the opposite of genuine demand, ie: the buzz around wii. nintendo didnt have to chop down the amount of launch units to a miniscule portion to get people hyped up about their system, sony did, hence this article and my reply. sony did this same thing with PS2 launch and even with smaller launches like the PS2 network adapter. just a cheap way of creating, what i consider (if its alright with you...) 'fraudulent demand'

Re:

[volsung]

Actually, that's not a particularly good term, since it is both inaccurate and emotionally loaded. Asking friends to shill your PS3 auction on eBay would be "fraudent demand." This is more like "artificial scarcity." Sony might be acting foolishly, but certainly not fraudulently, unless they are secretly paying people to go buy the units in order to ensure they sell out.

Re:

[Daniel Phillips]

This is more like "artificial scarcity." Sony might be acting foolishly, but certainly not fraudulently, unless they are secretly paying people to go buy the units in order to ensure they sell out.

It's not artificial at all, it is about the rate that Cell chips can be supplied and Blurays built. Also consider that unlike Microsoft, Sony does not intend to throw billions down the drain on their console business, and therefore has not written a lot of blank checks to scale up the early production. The early

Re:

[Pluvius]

It's pretty silly to think that Sony would be deliberately holding their supply to 80K units in Japan, though. A couple hundred thousand units would be almost believable, but 80K?

Rob

Re:

[Ant P.]

Artifical Scarcity might be more correct, but I think "Fraudulent Demand" conveys Sony's intention better.

Re:

[mark-t]

Artificial scarcity can, in fact, cause an increase in the demand as well, though. But it's a psychological thing: if one sees that product X is selling out all the time, they conclude that it is popular, and in a "keeping up with the Joneses" sort of thing, they further conclude that they should endeavor to get one at the earliest opportunity as well, causing the rise in demand.

Even imagined peer pressure can affect a person just as much as real peer pressure, so of course, artificial scarcity doesn't

Re:

[volsung]

I'm curious what the limiting factor is. Yield on the short wavelength laser diodes? Small production lines?

Re:

[snarlydwarf]

Nonsense.

The scarcity is real: there are problems producing blue laser diodes, and Sony has already postponed orders for diodes to other companies and is allocating the entire production to PS3 right now. Sony delayed their own Bluray player for this reason.

There is a reason why both BluRay and HD DVD players are spendy: the diodes are the bottleneck.

Irony: there are more PS3's slated for release day in the US than Microsoft had ready for the 360 release date last year. But in typical "let's bitch about S

Re:

[volsung]

Whoa buddy. You seem to be cramming words into my mouth here. (Perhaps rehashing the console wars over and over again is making people cranky.)

If we agree that fraud is for lying for person gain, then yes, Sony selling fewer units than they actually have and then claiming to have "run out" is fraud. (Although not the criminal kind, I suspect.) The fraud part of course being the second part, where they lie about the supply.

And, strictly speaking, I am pretending this "market vulnerability" you all

Re:

[Goaway]

And which exact part of the demand is "fraudulent"?

Re:

[GIL_Dude]

No, he's absolutely right. If there were a couple of million in the channel, there would be no excited crazy reports on the radio, TV, and internet about the people who were in line to get a PS3. This kind of crap makes Grandma's think this is a must have thing for their kid and while it doesn't spur end number demand, it certainly spurs false excitement and false "rush to get it" and even "wow, there aren't many so it's OK to pay this much or I won't get one" types of mentality.

Re:

[Pluvius]

IOW, it drives up the market price. Which is what I said. Those grandmas already knew that the kids wanted a PS3 (or at the very least would've heard about it regardless of what the media was saying), it's just that they weren't willing to pay $600 until they heard about the low supply. (And I would argue that a lot of those grandmas would've been willing to pay $600 even if there were millions of units available. The going price on eBay currently appears to be about $1500 or more, nearly three times re

Re:

[KDR_11k]

No, those reports would be there. Remember how Sony released a probably pre-written press release that all PSPs sold out in record time on the US launch and later had to retract that because people kept wondering about those huge stocks of PSPs many retailers still had at that point?

Re:

[Pluvius]

Lowered supply in itself has no effect on demand. This is basic economics, which, unlike psychology, is actually relevant to the argument at hand. Certainly a lowered supply combined with a fixed price will increase sales, but this is because the fixed price is well below the ideal price point, not because of an increased demand.

Rob

Re:

[Hope Thelps]

Lowered supply in itself has no effect on demand.

I disagree. The demand for diamond engagement rings is almost certainly higher due to the suppressed supply. Otherwise nobody would want them.

I don't think there's any doubt that low supply (and apparent or actual exclusivity) can boost demand. Of course, it would be absurd to suggest that that demand was any less "real" or more "fraudulent" than demand boosted by showing pretty girls drooling over the latest car, or adverts proclaiming how wonderfully white

Re:

[Pluvius]

1. The precise reason why people demand diamonds so much is because they're scarce; the scarcity enhances their beauty, and the purpose of a diamond is to look pretty. This doesn't apply to the PS3; very few people would buy one simply because not many of them exist. Especially since there's a near-guarantee that there will be more made available soon.

2. People would still demand diamonds, they just wouldn't demand them at current prices.

Now, I will admit that demand has been boosted somewhat, but not t

Re:

[Hope Thelps]

This doesn't apply to the PS3; very few people would buy one simply because not many of them exist.

I have no way of measuring the effect in relation to the PS3 but there are many many people for whom getting something that others don't have (or can't have) yet is a motivation. To witness companies taking this to absurd extreme, look at some of the ridiculous "collector" editions of games.

This is followed by "keeping up with the Joneses" where those left out need to catch up because just as having something

Re:

[StingRay02]

As I understand it, what lowered supply does, though, is make Sony's sales numbers look better than they really are. Correct me if I'm wrong.

For the sake of argument, I'm going to make up some demand numbers here. If the PS3 has a market of 1,000,000 people, and Sony only releases 500,000 units, those units get snapped up immediately, and Sony can say, "Hey, look! We sold out! What a success!" As the weeks and months go on, the demand numbers will increase as more people see the machine in action and

Re:

[zoney_ie]

It may be built on hype, but you have to do a bit more than that for people *still* to be buying Playstation 2s (even right now, today, even with the Xbox 360 there and Wii and PS3 around the corner). And that's not to mention the success of the predecessor.

Re:

[Pluvius]

As I understand it, what lowered supply does, though, is make Sony's sales numbers look better than they really are.

Not exactly. It does allow them to say that they sold out at lower numbers, but the numbers are still low. The reason why the Wii launch would be considered a "failure" if it only sold half of the units produced isn't because it didn't sell out, but because it didn't sell to expectations. It bears noting that the PS3 hasn't yet sold to expectations either, though for different reasons.

Rob

Re:

[StingRay02]

If anything, that shows the power of good software over hardware. God of War, the GTAs, Final Fantasy, Guitar Hero; great games make a great system. More and more of Sony's previously locked in brands are defecting to the 360 and I think that'll be the real downfall of the PS3 if they don't turn that around. Hardware shortages plus game that can be found on either 360 or PS3 are likely to drive 360 sales more than anything else. The PS3 will continue to sell out to the hardcare and the fanboys, but once

Re:

[Pluvius]

I think the 360 threat has been overblown, at least a little bit. The big advantage to the 360 is XBox Live, and only a minority of gamers is really interested in a pay service when you can play online for free on the PS3, no matter how good that service may be. Combine that with the fact that the 360 is basically dead in Japan, and we'll probably see Microsoft stay in the second-place position, though probably not as distant as it was last generation.

Rob

Re:Yeah, Hot new Xmas Item...

[advocate_one]

diamonds are not scare... DeBeers hoard them and create an artificial scarcity in order to keep the price high.

Re:

[Pluvius]

I agree, the main purpose of withholding supply is to increase price, and that's true for any product including diamonds. But as I've said several times in this thread, that's a function of the supply curve, not the demand curve.

In the case of diamonds, the effect that lowering supply has on the demand curve is a special function of diamonds, not a universal rule. IOW, yes, the high price of diamonds is a big reason why people want them, but this doesn't apply to the PS3. It very obviously doesn't apply

Re:

[c_forq]

Lowered supply in itself has no effect on demand.

What econ did you take? Lowered supply always increases demand unless it is an easily substitutable good, in which case it shifts higher demand to the substitutes (for example a lower supply of milk increases the demand for milk, while a lower supply of butter will increase the demand for margarine).

Re:

[Pluvius]

Lowered supply (whether through deliberate withholding of goods or through production problems) shifts the supply curve to the left and does absolutely nothing to the demand curve. Look at your textbook again.

Rob

Re:

[Opie812]

What econ did you take? Lowered supply always increases demand...

Wha? I have one weiner (a low supply you will agree?). Yet there is very little demand. *sigh*

I'm sure you can argue how I'm wrong with my interpretation of your comment, and you could very well be correct in that argument. I'm just joking around, is all.

Re:

[c_forq]

Except for their being an almost unlimited supply of one-of-a-kind cat shits, along with the abundance of substitutes from dogs, horses, squirrels, deer, rabbit and countless others.

Re:

[Mongoose]

Your sources are wrong.

1. PS3 Japan/US versions can no only play the same games, but the same bluray movies.

2. Japan use NTSC. It is Europe that uses PAL, and that's moot with HMDI anyway.

Thanks for playing.

Re:

[Pluvius]

Nah, not yet. Just look at most of the other replies to this article. Cognitive dissonance is a powerful thing, especially amongst console fanboys...

Rob

Re:Technical Issues Already

[toopc]

Some users are already reporting PS3 games freezing during play and some other technical issues. Makes sense, they cut supplies because they can't get good yields of usable components. That being the case, Sony probably sets the quality control bar as to what consittues a good usnit low as they can so they can have as many as possible. With all the noise made over the 360 overheating problems, I hope for Sony's sake these reports are premature. Because if they freeze or have other technical issues there are some 7 million Xbox 360 owners just wating to make a big deal out of it. I bet ya' everybody and there brother interested in concole gaming is just waiting to take a picture/video of a frozen PS3 and gain YouTube fame.

Re:

[Ant P.]

You're a bit late on that idea. It happened at E3.

Re:

[Psychotext]

lol... that moderation figures - Though technically I was first out of the links by 1 minute! =)

Re:

[Lead Butthead]

... And what are they going for on the Japanese eBay and CraigsList?

Actually eBay bowed out of Japanese market some years back. Online auction in Japan is dominated by Yahoo. That said, as of this writing there are 2435 entries returned for search keyword "Playstation 3" and "3" with some bid for 20gb unit hitting 1.2 million yen, or about 103k in USD.

your decimal is off by one place

[tpjunkie]

thats 10.3k in USD.

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