Well that was supposed to be a limited edition anyway.  Does Sony really want to give away $100 (Controller and Game) of merchandise with every PS3 now?

 Really what I believe we saw the last couple of months was a slow build up of PS3 sales as GTA IV approached and followed by MGS4.  Fans of both of those series that hadnt bought a PS3 yet started jumping in and now that both have released the demand just dropped.

Retailers said they could have sold three times as many 80GB bundles then they did. They even had a go at Sony for underestimating demand. It is clear that there was/is a higher demand for the 80GB PS3, than supply.

While hardware numbers are always nice, I'm excited to see what the hardware numbers will be. I think there will be some interesting stats. Interesting indeed!

If I look at past VGChartz history the 80GB was roughly 50% of the PS3 weekly sales before the holydays ( I deduce this from Motorstorm sales).

That and lets be honest, the PS3 game catalog looks nowhere the same now than it did 7 months ago.........( DMC4, GT5P, GTA4, MGS4, ...)

 So you think the a game that sold 502k units in one week did not have a large spike on hardware? Seriously? How do you explain the sustained sales increase after the 40gb was introduced into the Others and American market?

This thread is looking to be epic.

*grabs popcorn*

Some people are still stubbornly refusing to acknowledge there's a correlation between MGS4 and a bump in hardware sales.

The fact that most 80GB bundle sales were accounted for before they even reached store shelves, and the rest were gone by the end of June 12th seems to suggest otherwise. They only shipped about 70k bundles.

Some just wanted the 80GB model for the BC, but when you have 1.5m soft sales on opening weekend, saying that nobody bought the bundle because they also wanted the game is kidding themselves.

Also, I don't wanna say the 80gb thing is a "talking point" however it is damage control.

These numbers must exist without condition, you understand.

Otherwise, Nintendo would never have to take grief for second place sales, like it did last week, because "it is supply constrained."

Now, it obviously is supply constrained, just as the 80gb is. However, that's Sony/Nintendo's fault, and supply constrained or not, we must accept the market as it is today, in this snapshot, not on what we hope or predict, because as we've seen with week 2 MGS4/GTAIV hardware numbers, there is never telling what will or will not spike hardware sales, and for how long, for home consoles this generation.

Questions remain. Are people buying the MGS bundle for BC or MGS4? If it's for BC, then did MGS4 really move any units at all? If it's for both, will the demand be reduced once the hype for MGS4 has been killed, with sony slow to restock? Too much speculation remains around this bundle to guarntee it as a clear and decisive hardware booster once it is released, especially when we dont' know if Sony is losing more money off each one sold, and how many will ever be put into channel.

Yep. I think I will sit in the "wait for NPD" camp.

Heh, looks like I'm not the only popcorn enthusiast here. Tombi can vouch for me.

*continues to munch on some popcorn, along with DMeisterJ and Tombi*