Next-Gen Notes
A bunch of you have e-mailed me this from the Amazon Wii page:We are currently out of stock: We sold out of our initial supply of the Wii on Sunday morning, November 19, in less than one minute.
So I hit a sixty-second window yesterday, and it was the first time I'd pulled up the page in days. That is just wrong.
But even though it's wrong, I'll have it tomorrow.
Oh, and one more note (thanks David Hoffman): if you're in New York City and can't find a Wii, go to the Nintendo World Store on 49th Street between 5th and 6th Avenues. They have plenty of Wiis (restocking every night), all games, and all accessories except the component cables.
I've been thinking about the easiest way to track demand for the PS3. Since restocks are going to be very small for the foreseeable future, it didn't take long to realize that eBay is the only functioning market for the PS3 right now.
Here's the first piece, from a link supplied by Future Nobel Prize Winner Brian Pilnick:
It looks like PS3 fever isn’t going away, although prices have cooled a little. Today alone 439 PS3s have sold for an average price of $1,349.00 and since Friday’s launch 8,771 have sold for an average price of $1,550.42. That’s compared with last week’s average price of $1,959.73.
I've also done some manual tracking. Having access to eBay Marketplace Research (which is where the numbers listed above were gathered) gives comprehensive information, but if any bid rigging is going on, it can also give inflated numbers. So the method I use is to look at closing auction prices for a 10-15 minute window (there are multiple PS3 auctions closing every minute, amazingly) and see what the floor is, not the average.
At 9 p.m. last night, the lowest closing prices for 60GB units were generally betwen $1,200-$1,300. Today, in the last hour, the lowest prices have been in the $1,000-$1,100 range--and several of these auctions included a free game as well.
I think it will be very revealing to follow these auction prices over the course of the next few weeks to see where they ultimately settle. And these prices are critical, because they are an accurate indication of how much the most eager people are willing to pay.
I'll give you an update every few days on what the latest prices are, and where they seem to be headed.
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