"As soon as I buy it, I'm going to sell it," said Jose Mota, 26, who grabbed the first spot in line Tuesday outside the Union City, Calif., Best Buy. "People will pay whatever just to get their hands on one."
Say he starting waiting at noon on Tuesday, and he will be waiting until midnight on Thursday, that's 60 hours of waiting. Assume he sells it for the "three grand" the other guy was expecting, subtract the $600 (plus tax) he paid for the console.
$2400 / 60 = $40/hr max. Then you've got ebay fees paypal fees, and the time spent putting it online. Man this jus does not seem worth it to me.
Not to mention all the people out there that might not even get one!
Not to mention eBay is cracking the hell down across the world on PS3 sales, so I'm predicting a few of those buyers get a well-deserved shafting (my opinion).
Not that there's anything actually illegal about it, but ethically (in an informal sense) it's quite suspect. Instead of people who want the system for themselves, they're going to get screwed and end up waiting longer so a bunch of speculators can profit immensely.
I think this may be the last console frenzy that ends up like this, though. I can easily see big-box retailers and the manufacturers themselves taking action at some point; not that distinguishing the buyers would be any small task.
ebay is only cracking down on the pre-order auctions ... limiting those auctions to sellers with an established set of credentials... after launch, its back to ebay business as usual....
i wonder how many people here have one reserved or are in lines...
Kudos to eBay for protecting the buyer. Last year, I was a victim of someone with good credentials yet f'd me over when it was stated that it was "in hand".
I'm still fighting the credit agency over my charge back as they say I wasn't within right to do so.
Well I was going to wait in line all night tonight but last night at Best Buy the line was already 30-40 people long and I won't get one now. O well. And sobriquet $40/hr or even $30/hr is a lot of money for a lot of people (me being one of them). I make $7/hr at my job so if I could make $2000 on a PS3 that would be like 4 months of working at my job (I only work about 20 hours a week).
Yeah, since $40/hr. translates to a $83,200 salary, I don't think we should all be so fast to just laugh these guys off. Heck, even if it was $20/hr. (which isn't too bad for manual labor), it's a lot of money for just essentially keeping a pulse for three days.
...assuming they actually get one. If I was past #5 in line I would just leave.
Which is why you'd have had to shown up earlier, thus working for 60 hours and not, say, 30. Lower profit margin (earnings/time) but higher likelihood of income.
If I was past #5 in line I would just leave.
At a Best Buy in a big city? Considering the Target I work at which is in a suburb area got 10 (8 60GBs) I think that a Best Buy in the middle of SF will have more than 5.
Someone told me that the local Circuit City already had 50 people in line, but only 8 PS3's available, leaving 42 people waiting for NOTHING. Why would you continue waiting if you knew you wouldn't get one? Maybe those 42 are actually waiting for the Wii...
Or, on Sunday - if all goes to plan - you can walk into any Nintendo selling store and buy a Wii which through it's innovative new interface and decent sized collection of fun games at launch should provide enough entertainment to last you a few months until you can act like a civilized human being and purchase one for yourself if you so desire.
Seriously, when did we become such animals when it comes to consumption? So you have it first. And you're the only one who has it. Literally like a second later you aren't even the only one. And, considering all of the reviews we've been seeing, many others have actually had it for longer already. Ooo... does that sting? Heh.
Personally, I waited too long for this console and it fell way short on it's promises. And much like I won't be buying Vista, I'm skipping this. Sunday night I'll be sweatin' to tennis in the livin' room!
I look forward to the day when people are able to build their own consoles that can play mutli-format discs. Where are you DVD Jon!?!
Nine months pregnant, Julie Mosley said she tried to ignore her contractions for the chance to score machines for her family, her daughter's father and her younger brother.
Ok, this is where people need to draw the line when YOU'RE PREGNANT WITH A SOON TO BE DELIVERED CHILD. C'mon people. WTF! /rant
Yeah, our Wal-Mart (which is mostly out in an underdeveloped rural area, Rock Spring GA) had about 10 people waiting since monday.
I inquired about how many they had in stock, but I didn't have time to stick around. No big loss, I didn't plan on getting one until the spring anyways.
For those that are interested they will be available on costco.com tomorrow morning at 8 am PST.
For about 1.064 minutes...
Hey, better than waiting in line for 48 hours...
I went to Target tonight and they had a PS3 on display that I played and it really wasn't very impressive. The graphics were no better than and Xbox 360 and the game froze up for a second a couple times (it was called Motor something).
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