PS3 - A Lesson in Math
I know that most of you have probably seen the news stories about people standing in line for the last few days to get a Sony PlayStation 3. For every person who is standing in line, there appear to be about 20 who are scouring Ebay in the hopes of bidding on one. As a result, this $600 device is being sold on the secondary market for upwards of $3000.
MMM HMMM
I said $3000.
This is stupid. There is no reason to have a piece of $600 equipment for five times it’s retail price, with a limited number of games (around 20) at release time. Plus, if you are any sort of technology connoisseur, you would know better than to buy any piece of equipment on version 1.0. Doesn’t anyone remember what happened with the first batch of XBox 360’s? They had problems. Then as the shipments of the systems progresses, we stop hearing about problems as much.
Speaking of XBox 360’s, let me give a word of advice to all the people who are thinking about bidding on a PS3 this week on Ebay. I have an idea that will save you a ton of money if you have a little bit of patience.
Instead of the PS3 for $3000, buy yourself an Xbox 360 for $400 on Amazon.com.
Spend $200 on Accessories like controllers, batteries for controllers, etc.
Spend $200 on three games to hold you over for a few months.
You have spent $800 on Xbox 360 to solve your video game fix while PS3’s are in their first shipment and being bid up to ridiculous prices on Ebay.
So no, three months down the road go get your PS3. Sell your Xbox 360 and all your gear on Ebay for at least 50% of the original purchase price.
So at the end of the day the math looks like this. You spend $800 on Xbox Stuff. You get $400 back. Then you spend $1000 on the PS3, accessories and games ($600 for system, $200 on accessories, $200 on games.)
In total, you have spent $1400 and gotten to play with two systems. Also as compared with the ludicrous $3000 Ebay PS3 price, you have saved $1600.
(Or, you could just not buy anything and wait until the price drops and the systems are available 3 months from now, you dummy.)
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If I had 3000 bucks to throw around, I’d be at the OSU game Saturday.
I am not a cutting edge console guy. I held on to my Sega Genesis until 99, and then my PS2 until 2001. I just can’t cost justify these consoles while the manufacturers are still making games for all systems. Once NCAA football and Madden stop being produced for PS2 then’ ill jump to PS3.
I had a preorder in for a PS3 as of October 2005. I put my $200 down and then sold the order for $400 to some kid in GameStop last night - while I was picking up a new game for my PS2.
v1.0 will have bugs - so I will wait one full year for the price to drop from $600 to $400, and making my $200 on the pre-order will essentially give me a PS3 for $200 in one year.
THAT is financial analysis.
Um, Craig… can you confirm that what Kiddicus has proposed is, in fact and by definition, financial analysis?
I wish I had my hands on one, I’d sell that puppy on ebay to some rich kiddie in a heartbeat.
Why couldn’t I have been smart enough to see this coming and pre-order one?
The one question I’d like you financial gurus to answer is: How much does this influence the high definition DVD wars… I would think Sony has delivered a crushing blow against HD-DVD by putting a blue-ray drive in the PS3.