Even with a $50 premium, minus E-bay seller's fee, I don't really see the point unless you're making transactions like this in volume. Of course if you netted over $100 on a single transaction I suppose it would still be worth the effort for some. Unfortunately for flippers, no one's getting over $350 for a 3DS as some have already pointed out, they're readily available in many locations. From the looks of it, some of these flippers are having a hard time just recovering the expenses to include seller's fee, retail price of a 3DS (since flippers rarely ever buy wholesale as dealers), etc.

If one can buy a 3DS for $249 delivered from Amazon (which you can as of right now), why would they pay a penny more to an individual reseller for the same product?

The reseller's market for Kinect hit a ceiling at about $50 over retail and petered out almost immediately after the holidays by comparison.

In the case of the 3DS, demand will likely shift depending upon software releases as it should be.

Price competition in order to attract preorders, know the difference.

Yup, Nintendo was smart this time. Screwing all those Ebay resellers selling their handhelds at a loss hahahaha.

No, it's still down after launch.

glad e-bayers aren't making any money

still don't know why doing that is not illegal when scalping tickets are.  its essentially the same thing. 

Actually, there was no fixed price here in the UK, and even when the 229 price was revealed, over here a worker predicted the price to hit 190, even without stock shortages...

There were 50 of us in the midnight launch, by far the most here for any console launch. Supply is very high, not weak demand...

I expect 180k in the UK week 1 with 500k in the entrity of EMEAA week 1

Simple supply/demand principles apply here.

With tickets, they are a finite, one-time event resource, so it's reasonable to see why this should be regulated, particularly for any type of event that sells out.

With something like consumer electronics, particularly any video game related hardware, it's going to be made for years on a constant basis meaning any flipping is directly related to a manufacturer's inability to produce and ship enough units relative to demand at a given time.

In short, blame the manufacturer if and whenever this happens.

Of course it's still ridiculously annoying when you can't buy a common consumer item because people are making it a part time job to scoop up inventory to resell at inflated prices.

I know this is probably not everywhere, but I sure as hell hope noone pays more than full price for a system I can currently find at almost all the major stores in my area. I saw 8 in my local Target alone Monday evening. IM actually really curious to see how this sells now. The lady at target says people are looking at it, but are weary of the price. For Nintys sake I hope they just did good on supply.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-03-29-game-staff-told-to-buy-3ds-from-tesco

Pure awesomeness ;)

People on eBay are insane. I have seen people trying to charge $300 - $5,000 for a 3DS.

I haven't seen the system sold out anywhere yet, why would anyone put them up for that price.