Comments on: “Capitalism at its finest” & The Loss of Video Gaming Innocence (Continues)

By: dhex

dhex — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 16:23:26 +0000

“Hell, I remember when the PS2 was launched and some woman who had just picked up her system was brutally assaulted up by four teenagers right in front of a huge line of folks waiting to get theirs and no one bothered to help her because they didn?t want to loose their slot. This happened btw at the Herald Square Gamestop and no one who works at that store will talk about the incident since they too didn?t do anything except stand and watch (at least at the time; I?m not sure if any of those folks are still working there today).”

that’s almost a new york thing. the woman from the late 70s who was murdered as people listened (the bystander effect or whatever it’s called, i forget) and even that recent attack on the gay man who was big in the drag circuit by three teens on the lower east side while people watched from fancy restaurants (the guy who eventually ran them off was driving past, not a pedestrian 10 feet away!) and expensive clubs, etc. though i imagine it’s the same in a lot of big cities.

i hate waiting in lines (i’d do it for enough money though) so i can’t imagine going through this shit for a fucking video game system. then again, these are probably the same people who bitch about price cuts six months or a year later, so…i dunno. the system scalping on ebay works because people are willing to pay for it. i don’t know why that upsets people so much, outside of a sense of “fairness” that is essentially unfettered entitlement and/or a deep genetic commitment to stupidity.

captain pedant points: i can’t see why a company would limit a launch for marketing effects when they already spend hundreds of millions on marketing as it is. sony in particular needs to recoup costs asap on this shit, not drag things out. unless, which is my guess, they’re trying to hide weaknesses on the supply and manufacturing side of things, hoping that early popularity will drive down production costs by increasing the whole bluray profile. etc.

By: Rye

Rye — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 01:21:02 +0000

The PS3 and the aura surronding it has soured me so much torwards “next generation” gaming in general, coming from ANY developer/company. I feel like I will be a lot happier about the whole thing if I stop reading the internet.

By: Swimmy

Swimmy — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 23:54:59 +0000

And hey Matt. I don’t read IC forums anymore, but I still read everyone’s livejournals. Plus I post at TGQ. Your blog’s one of my favorites! I always read it, I just don’t often have something to say.

By: Swimmy

Swimmy — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 23:44:20 +0000

Ach. Shaper just informed me that the price discrimination is Japan-only. Here we’re definitely getting the planned shortage. Oh good.

By: Shapermc

Shapermc — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 23:43:08 +0000

That ebay listing is already shut down.

But yes, I would bitch if I cared more about it. Come Wii preorders and shit… you will find me flying off the handle if I can’t get one.

By: Matt

Matt — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 23:42:48 +0000

Interesting points… I do know that in Japan that retailers are indeed being told that they can sell the PS3 at whatever price they want… and I forget where, but I’ve heard a definite possible price rage, thats goes below $600 to above. I haven’t heard if the same is true in America, and I would have to assume that it wasn’t anything besides $500/$600, we would have heard about it by now.

Then again, anything can happen (hell, no one really knows what games will be available at launch, not even the retailers), but I would have to assume that such an open policy will lead to even more bundles.

But anyway, holy shit, Swimmy! Haven’t seen your name in a long whiles! Its nice to know a IC-vet checks out my site… how’s it going?

By: Swimmy

Swimmy — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 20:45:37 +0000

The way I see it, they’re not being taken advantage of. What’s happened recently is that game companies have created arbitrary shortages for whatever purposes (my guess is hype/publicity). Mind that a shortage is NOT a function of how many consoles get sent here but of the PRICE. If Sony ships 100,000 fewer consoles and jacks up the price a few hundred dollars, there won’t be lines and queues and whatnot–the people who are willing to pay that much will pay that much, and the ones who aren’t will go home. The problem with the Xbox 360 was that the price was clearly too low. The average Ebay selling price would have been the proper one, at least in supply/demand terms.

I read a report somewhere that Sony would be letting individual stores determine the price. If this is true the situation may well be far less chaotic as people are predicting. It depends on exactly how they determine it. Is Sony selling to every store at the same price? Charging stores based on number of consoles per area? Sony’s completely capable of reaping all of that Ebay-profit if they handle this properly.