Whoa ... calm down. I have a feeling that the same thing is going to happen with the PS3. It seems to be tradition now that scalpers outnumber gamers to raise demand and prices. I just don't think that any company will produce enough to meet demand on the first wave.

Unless M$ comes up with a miracle and drops over a million of these in stores in the next 3 weeks, they're BIG losers in this one, because once Christmas is over, the demand will be signifigantly reduced.

The PS3 launch will probably be alot worse. That is unless Sony gets a brain and learns from Microsoft's mistakes.

I wanted to test this so I went to my local Best Buy.

I was able to score a pound of coke.

No Xbox360's to be found

I agree DamingR. This was their chance to get a big foothold on Sony but it seems a worldwide launch was more important to them than the homeland success. So instead of satisfying one market they have short sighted every market. Most of the demand is because of the holidays I think it the hype and sales will be greatly reduced in a couple months. They definitely shot themselves in the foot.

I do like the theory on holding them all to avoid the ebayers.

Don't think the PS3 launch will be as hectic since it is not relative to xmas.

How will it be worse? Sony may not be much better than MS in terms of manipulation, but they put out about 3 times as many PS2's as there were Xbox 360's at launch.

I don't know where you live, but near me it was just as impossible to get a ps2 when it came out. I just lucked out on a bundle on amazon.com. The same will probablly happen with the ps3, since it is the most anticipated system. I see things being worse which is why I'm going to pre order it asap.

Heard a radio ad yesterday telling everyone to run out and buy their 360. Later on I was in a store and overheard a salesperson tell a customer that they had 150 people on their list and they were getting 10

Not to mention the huge loss in software sales. Supporters will hate this. What does everyone do with their christmas money after christmas? Buy games. They aren't as likely to buy a $400 console AND games however. No, that's not how it works. The way it works is you get the console for christmas then you buy games with your money. At least when I was a kid.

However, I'm still pretty sure that the demand for the PS2 was more than 3x the demand for the 360 ... production numbers mean very little unless paired with demand numbers.

The demand for the PS3 is higher than the 360. I get people asking about the PS3 all the time. Our store only started getting a lot of 360 questions about a month before it came out.

Just found this in the xbox forum. Seems its true that Best Buy are holding them for the 18th. At least we have a SPECIFIC date now!




http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/8407/bestbuy3ok.jpg

It almost seems they'd want to get that internal E-mail on the internet somehow. Ther'es a comment "The number of Xbox360s we get is consistent with the numbers of accessories and games sold..." yaddie. Get people to go out and buy the games prior to greaten their odds? Who knows.

And at least it specifically says not to force bundles on people.

A friend and I are talking about waiting at a Best Buy on the 17th. Might be fun, but I wonder just how early we'd have to be there? With this information being all over the place, I wonder...

Struck out again today. However, the guy at Best Buy told me that they have no idea when systems are coming back in. When they finally do come in, they will not be put out until after the store closes.

I am giving up searching until I hear about anyone else finding one. In all honesty I am starting to lose interest in the system. I am starting to think of what to do with the $700 I planned on spending on the system + games. That will all change once I see that white box on the shelf though

Well, according to that memo they're supposed to hold onto them until the 18th, so I wouldn't bother checking there again if I were you.

how is a relaunch an anti-scalping tactic?

Besides, it seems that only Best Buy is holding back inventory for the 18th.

So people know that Best Buy will have 20 systems for sale on the 18th. At best, that might stall people from buying on eBay for 2 weeks. But what then? People will be in a greater frenzy to buy with only 1 week before Christmas.

Let's keep it real here, stores aren't going to get 100's of systems in on the 18th. They'll have LESS (MAYBE the same) number of units as they had for the launch. There's a greater demand for 360s now than there was before the launch.

So where are these units that were supposedly en route this week and available for purchase this weekend? (2 weeks after the initial shipment contrary to MS' statement of weekly shipments)

The Target that I check on a regular basis has pretty much gotten rid of their 360 section. Before the launch they had an entire locking case dedicated to the 360. They had about 4 rows for each game. It was like that for the past week. Today they had all of the 360 games condensed into as few rows as possible. The spaces on the bottom of the case for the 360's was replaced with regular Xboxes. The rest of the case was filled with regular games.

Well for launch my brother and I got to our Best Buy at 10:00 pm for what we though was a insane time for a 9:00 am opening the next day. Yet when we showed up there were already about thirty people there and the store was getting 40 systems in. So we thought it would be fine, but then those thirty people had a bunch of friends join them and by midnight, my brother and I were something like 42 in line when we statred out at 33. So to make a long story short, the earlier...the better. If you can afford the gas, I would advise driving by the BB you plan on going to multiple times on the 17th. Once you see more then 5 people on line, you better get your spot since this shipment is only susposed to have 20. That way even if those people call all their douschbag freinds, you still will be high enough in line not to get nudged out like my brother and I did. Also dress warmly, bring an umbrella and a chair. My brother and I forgot the chair and it sucked! Hope this helps.

according to this link 1 in 10 xbox 360s shipped for the launch (40k out of 400k) found their way through the ebay system.

btw, i am in a different metropolitan region this weekend for the big 12 championship game (hook 'em), and, shocker, there were no new shipments here as well.

Thanks man. I think it's pretty screwed up that people were holding spots. Since it's opening at 6 am we're probably try to be there by 6 pm. Though we're probably going to look pretty silly to those people who walk into the store for those 4 hours.

I am pretty much a Sony guy, but I have no real desire for the PS3. The controllers look cheesy, and the HD thing has me sold fon XBox, since sony had dropped the ball on that one.

Although, if a spring/early summer release is announced, I would wait to see what the final specs are.

I don't think that you will look too silly because everybody will be doing it. Plus it's a fun experience. This past launch was the first time I ever waited on line for anything. It sucked that I left empty handed and it was raining the entire time...but it was still fun and I'm glad I gave it a shot.