1. Sony could be stuffing the channels by giving deals to companies. for example, Sony could be offering a 10 1 deal. To elaborate, just as an example, Philip Morris used to offer me a 50 1 deal. For every 50 cases of cigarettes I order from them, they give me one case for free which i can sell for a profit. (and yes, I use to work in retail as a purchaser)

2. Even if Sony is trying to stuff the channels, it is still the companies call wether to allow such channel stuffings. I use to do this a lot, as i said, if i was offered a really great deal that in the long run would make more profit then I would increase purchase orders for that specific item or product. Of course, this is done after some carefull analysis

3. It is true, that it is possible for stores to be overstocked with certain items especially for large retail outlets. This is because most of the time, to save on manpower, certain activities are centralized at the corporate level. One example is purchasing. I dont know how it is there in US of A, but when I used to work at retail, I was an assistant merchandising manager and i was responsible for making the ordered quantities for about 1500 items/products for about 25 or so stores. I based my ordered quantities on past sales trend as these sales trend usually give a good picture of demand. Anyways, I can see how it is that PS3s are being ordered in larger quantity compared to last year. It is a common practice to assume that sales would increase vs last years sales. This is because ALL companies' goals is to grow their business. And to grow ones busniness, especially in retail, would mean that sales would have to increase.

4. If its gamestop we're talking about, it is very likely that the ordering is done automatically. Meaning, there is already a replenishment system that does all the ordering for all the stores. All the purchasing department has to do is stuff the DC or distribution centers with stocks and the system would automatically replenish the different retail stores / branches. This saves a lot on manpower especially if there are more than 100 stores.  so my guess is, the OPs store is being replenished automatically based on last years sales trend.

5. Its the christmas season. If the store is already stuffed with stocks, you can bet that it'll be even more overstocked as the stores are getting ready for massive sales. Like i said, I use to do this stuffing shit all the time. There was a time where I stuffed all 25 stores with a shit load of beer/wines and other spirits in preparation for christmas. I did this during October and my boss and all of the store managers for going "what the fuck did you do you morron"!!! and i was like "relax you dumbassess!!" i know what i'm doing...

Finally someone that knows about this stuff, i work at retail as a computer systems analyst, and last year we installed a WMS (warehouse management system) that is hooked up with the ERP, TMS and SCM, so we have most operations done automatically according to corporate decisions, and we are not as big as Gamestop, so they must have even a better system for this.

This doesn't surprise me one bit at this point. Sony shipment's have pretty much been whack since mid year compared to MS versus real sales. So I wouldn't be surprised by huge stockpiles throughout the US and this being of the weakest Decemeber's yet for the PS3 come NPD time. There will be a massive gap between the 360 and PS3 in the US this holiday and likely 10 million or more by year end ltd.

hahaha

they know they have no chance agains MS this holidays so they overship.

cant wait for NPD haha

I read a few comments.

Man ya'll seen to be arguing over OP story for no reason.

I don't think OP was a smart guy, he's working at gamestop and he don't even know why Sony ship those PS3 to his store.

I have been working in small store like you years ago, the product the company send to you is odering by your manager dude.

Sony ain't ship free PS3 to your store and lose money for no reason. Every company in the world do that. They must get pay before shipping something to a store.

Your manager order them, they ship to your store.

The question to you OP is, do you know why you got pay and how much?

The amount of PS3's Sony has been sending us for the past few months is getting OUT OF HAND. I took pictures of our basement where we have more than 45 regular PS3's, not even counting the Move PS3 bundles. And that's just our basement because upstairs in our backroom is where we keep  a good amount of systems to easily grab for customers, and we have a TON of PS3/PS3 bundles up there, too (15 ).

Contrast this to our Xbox 360's which are constantly selling out the moment we get them in, and we almost never have 250gb or 250gb Kinect bundles in stock. 4gb regular 360's are usually the only ones we have, and the 4gb Kinect bundle is what we get the most of which still sell out every week. And Wii's are being regulated properly, too, including the new red ones. Sony just keeps sending mass PS3 shipments and we have almost nowhere to put them with our small storage area.

I noticed my manager saying something similiar about the $100 Move bundles, too. Last week we got some more shipments of those and he said "Where the **** do they expect us to put these, it's not like they're selling out!" or something along those lines. That caught me off guard because he usually doesn't say things like that, but he is right. We have a ton of Move bundles, and again, in contrast, it's Kinect that's actually selling out, despite being more expensive.

That got me thinking that Sony might be channel stuffing Move as well, and it goes hand-in-hand with their recent "shipped" numbers reported. But I don't know if I'm speculating too far into this. The thing is, it's like this at every Gamestop in my area: mass PS3 shipments, [lesser] mass Move shipments, sold out 250gb Xbox 360's, sold out Kinects. I wonder if Amazon is experiecing the same thing since they are also sold out of Kinects, Kinect 4gb 360's and Kinect 250gbs.

I wish I can take more pictures but I don't want to risk anything. What do you guys think? Anyone in retail experiencing similiar things?