Are Consoles Just Getting More Expensive?

Ars Technica talks about how the DS Lite warranted high prices in Japan, with "used" units being sold at high markup. They quip, "Can you imagine a retailer doubling the price of a used system that's in such high demand? North American retailers do jerk you around something fierce by using bundles, but the only people really making a killing on the resale end of hard to find systems are the Ebayers."

Which I think hits it on the head quite squarely. The retailers will do as much as they can with the bundles and whatnot to jack up the price, the rest of the spoils goes to Ebayers. Question is ... if all these people are willing to pay such high sticker prices ... should we expect the hardware to follow?

Probably not.

The 360's outrageous eBay sales were likely an effect of the poor supply itself. Would that price hold out till March? Well, OK, probably ... because the supply still sucks in March. When the PSP came out in America, it was hard to find and usually bundled up to about $400 or $500 ... but now it's down to it's standard $250 core bundle. Oddly, it's eBay that is still out of whack ... hard to find units for under $300 there and crazy ass multi thousand dollar bundles abound.






tagged: game, gaming