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archbrix on 27 November 2012
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thismeintiel said:
archbrix said:
thismeintiel said:
I don't buy this "extreme demand." If there was that much demand, there wouldn't be ~2.5K consoles on ebay, which are selling at a max of $50-60 profit. People would be buying them like crazy for possibly double, maybe triple, the original price. There also wouldn't have been stacks on Black Friday about as tall as the 360 and PS3 ones, where people were calmly taking systems off, instead of rushing and pushing to make sure they got the last ones.

Frankly, regarding the units on eBay and Amazon I think people are being reasonable and simply waiting for more stock to appear in stores at this point, particularly with the economy the way that it is; most people probably aren't willing to pay exceedingly high prices from scalpers on these sites.  We'll see how it is as Christmas draws nearer.

If there was crazy demand for it, they would. They've been doing it since the start of ebay, most notibly starting with the Tickle Me Elmo doll.  Not sure what people were paying on ebay for the Wii when it first sold out, but I'm sure it was for more than $299.  Heck, a PS3 at launch was sold for ~$9000 and some were getting violent with each other in lines waiting for it.  And really, come on, people didnt just all of a sudden wise up for the Wii U launch.

Clearly there's high demand for the console, otherwise nobody would have any trouble finding one anywhere and online retailers would have an abundance of stock; neither of which is the case at the moment.  

Furthermore, with so many people purchasing the system solely for the sake of selling them at a profit, naturally that's going to bring those prices down.  The day after pre-orders went on sale there was an eBay listing for $900 with multiple bids.  But after so many more scalped units began appearing - each a little lower than the last - the prices have steadied at $50 to $150 more than retail just to stay competitive with each other.

Finally, again, the economy is quite different today than it was six years ago.  While people are still willing to spend money for the holidays, you're not going to see the WiiU - or a newly released PS4/NeXtBox - hitting remotely close to $9000...