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I been a longtime lurker and love this site so thought i'd join just to relay some info after reading this post.

I work in Oxford St HMV in London which is possibly our biggest store in Europe. I can confirm there is not a PS3 or a 360 shortage here nor at any of our other stores. When they get low stock they ring us as we normally have excess stock we can send.
If you actually look at VGC figures your see the PS3 has actually been declining in sales since the start of may in UK. It used to sell around 18k a week here and is now at around 15k to 12k a week. The MGS4 bundle has been a good seller but now it has dropped off and i think that is what we are seeing. People expected the boost of sales from that title to continue 2 months after release and that isn't what happens with games. You get a boost for maybe the first 2 weeks then they start dropping. So in terms of the UK the PS3 is only selling 1k-3k less a week then it did 4 months ago. For there to be a shortage these drops would need to be far higher as demand increases. But this is the misconception people have taken, they see low sales and they think must be a shortage. When in reality it is just the same as it was a few months back. In fact if you look across all the markets you see the same story.

But to assume there is a shortage is ok but the question is how long does a shortage take to fix? The Wii seems to have a constant shortage here but still shifts out a good 40k+ a week. They are re-supplied at least once a week here as is the 360 and PS3. But the numbers we receive are lower for the 360 as PS3. Which keeps in tune with the current sales trends.

So i think the interesting thing is with this is how long can the shortage view be used? What if say in 1 months time when the old PS3 and 360 are gone the numbers still remain the same? Will people look back upon this period and say they made a mistake it was not a shortage? As i feel this is what is happening. It has been a longtime since the PS3 posted 18k+ sales here and it is strange to see this sales trend that has lasted months be explained as actually a shortage. So just felt i should tell you guys there is no shortage here. Of course it makes no difference if you believe me or not.