eBay: almost 15K PS3s auctioned off in first week

Popular online auction Web site says 14,675 PS3s were sold for an average price of just under $1,200; Wiis go for an average of $412.

Some opportunists saw the recent launch of the PlayStation 3 as a chance to make a quick $1,000. Their plan was to rough it in front of a store for days in hopes of getting one of the hard-to-find consoles and reselling it to cash-flush gamers willing to pay a premium for the system.

Popular online auction site eBay was the online marketplace of choice for most people looking to sell or buy a PS3, and the company revealed some of the numbers from the console's first week in North America.

eBay released data on its sales for Black Friday, the popular shopping day immediately following Thanksgiving, and tucked between the sales numbers of Tickle-Me Elmos and fruitcakes was information on sales of the PS3, Wii, and Xbox 360.

For the period between and including November 17 to November 24--the PS3's first eight days on sale--14,675 PS3s were sold through the online site for an average price of $1,186. eBay did not separate information for the PS3's two models; a 60GB version retails for $599 and a 20GB version sells for $499.

Those who hawked preorders fared slightly better. From October 19 to November 24, which included what eBay calls"pre-sale activity," 28,233 PS3s (or preorder rights to the machines) were sold for an average price of $1,370.

Numbers of the more readily available and cheaper Wii weren't too surprising. From the $250 console's debut on November 19 through Black Friday, 26,708 Wiis were sold on eBay for an average price of $412. Preorder madness wasn't as great for Nintendo's console--29,452 Wiis were sold for an average of $427.82 from October 19 to November 24.

The Web site also released information on sales of the Xbox 360, reporting that 331 systems were sold between November 12 and November 24 for an average of $421.

Prices for both the PS3 and Wii on eBay have been falling sharply since their much-hyped launches. A quick glance at listings on the site shows that most PS3 auctions (which still number more than 10,000) aren't exceeding $1,000, and most Wiis aren't going for more than $300.

193 Comments

  • RaiKageRyu

    Posted Dec 2, 2006 3:05 pm GMT

    Someone made a few quick bucks.

  • rikhan_z

    Posted Dec 2, 2006 2:33 pm GMT

    rare PS3 sold on ebay = porfitable business

    alot of people must really one a ps3 if they were selling like hotcakes.

  • Reetesh

    Posted Nov 30, 2006 8:06 am GMT

    :X One should Stop buying these off Ebay... Only if We stop buying those people can start having normal lives.. kinda like buying animal goods

  • bigbrown69

    Posted Nov 28, 2006 8:14 pm GMT

    wow

  • gamer1

    Posted Nov 28, 2006 5:04 pm GMT

    All I have to say is that I feel pretty bad for those guys buying a system for so much... usualy launch systems are prone to have faults.. (XBOX360 catching fire) and not to mention there aren't many games on them yet... (Only Resistance fall of man, for the PS3, and Legend of Zelda Twighlight princess for the Wii... well that's my opnion at least). The question is why spend so much money on a consoles that could be faulty and when there aren't so many games out at the moment what's the rush? Just wait a while and save yourself a lot of money.

  • Superchris130

    Posted Nov 28, 2006 3:19 pm GMT

    Who out there has a ps3? Dude, is it worth the money? How many great games are sony only? Message me, will ya!

  • pp222

    Posted Nov 28, 2006 1:27 pm GMT

    silverfoxfoxfox, yeah cause Gamecube had classic Nintendo games up for download, a web browser, photo viewer, online, graphics better than Xbox, and much more. Beside, the motion sensing controller is revolutionary so shut your mouth you graphic whore.

  • silverfoxfoxfox

    Posted Nov 28, 2006 12:58 pm GMT

    i think nintendo is trying to fool gamers, except for the motion sensing controller, it is basically a gamecube

  • UMCP

    Posted Nov 28, 2006 12:45 pm GMT

    Shut up Hsk_Dark_Link. Wii supports no HD. There aren't that many great games out right now. So stop bashing about ps3.

  • Hsk_Dark_Link

    Posted Nov 28, 2006 12:36 pm GMT

    I can think of a lot better things to spend $600 on....hmmm....maybe a Wii and a couple of games.

  • jhotmann

    Posted Nov 28, 2006 12:11 pm GMT

    if i had several thousand dollars i could think of a lot better things to buy than a ps3 for several reasons...wait a year and its only $600 and there will be better games, also with all that extra money i didnt spend i could buy an awesome high def tv and 7.1 surround sound system....anyone who bought a ps3 on ebay for over $1000 is an idiot.

  • Sam_Lowery

    Posted Nov 28, 2006 11:50 am GMT

    I just checked, with one minute left the 20gig version is going for $550.

  • ThaGrateOne

    Posted Nov 28, 2006 11:21 am GMT

    Or is it that people are blinded?

  • cjcr_alexandru

    Posted Nov 28, 2006 11:13 am GMT

    People can be ... crazy.

  • ThaGrateOne

    Posted Nov 28, 2006 10:57 am GMT

    yea, if they were true gamers, yea they are sick and upset seeing by the time Sony catches up...in a few years...the new Xbox will emerge!

  • Cloud737

    Posted Nov 28, 2006 10:32 am GMT

    Lol, and now I wonder what the folks that payed $5 000 for the ps3 think, cause now you can get it for 1 000.

  • anamnawshad

    Posted Nov 28, 2006 10:27 am GMT

    Wow people made a lot of money!!!

  • Cubb7

    Posted Nov 28, 2006 10:26 am GMT

    i was almost one of them.

  • ThaGrateOne

    Posted Nov 28, 2006 10:00 am GMT

    Sony's promises back at E3-05 was said to be THE TRUE NEX-GEN console at launch...remember? and what did we get...umm...Gundam crap! Those smoke and mirrors are going to catch up with them soon enough.

  • brandontek

    Posted Nov 28, 2006 9:21 am GMT

    thats really is dumb. there are no good games for it and people are stpending like over 5k.

  • Autokiller

    Posted Nov 28, 2006 7:38 am GMT

    dude....... wats the point of buying a ps3 now?? for the moment ps3 only have crappy games

  • jonzilla_basic

    Posted Nov 28, 2006 7:27 am GMT

    that says allot about the PS3 fans. greedy!!!

  • chrisdojo

    Posted Nov 28, 2006 6:37 am GMT

    wow. ebay is raking in mass $$$ in final value fees!!!

  • V_Zarnold_N

    Posted Nov 28, 2006 6:03 am GMT

    thats what happens, those punks need to step away and let people who are actually going to play them buy them. Man i hate people that do this it pisses me off. Gamers want the games and money grubbing bastards want all of the money so they buy the system and sell it for 1000's of dollars.... bunch of jerks. Sony should have been smart and just sold the first batch of ps3 for a 1000 dollars.... woulda been smarter for them

  • nullvision

    Posted Nov 28, 2006 5:56 am GMT

    The warranty won't be valid? How do you figure? Cash receipt says whoever turns the thing in with issues is the opriginal owner, fool.

    Not that there are NEARLY as many problems as with 360, mind you.

    Lemmings won't even admit defeat in the last gen, losing 5 to 1 and not making a single dime on the xbox for MS. I would scarcely expect honesty from them in anything else.

    Look, the next gen has started. Sony has said so. So we will see, lemmings. Sony won't be unseated by MS this gen. Not MS. If anyone can do it, it'll be Nintendo. MS has never been number one in games in any way. Other than flight sim, they have made garbage for years on the pc. For you to believe they can do anything except BUY their way out of competing is to ignore their past history in everything they try.

    Anyway, as a side note, it'll be fun to watch zune flop as well.

  • snakes2solid

    Posted Nov 28, 2006 5:52 am GMT

    I'm keepin mine!!!!!!!!.. but the market and sony have caused this!!!!.. they talk crap like" worldwide launch and blah blah blah"... then ship a small amount of ps3's and people wonder why there's chaos!?!.. and ebay's not gonna stop people from selling....they're makin a ton of money on this one!!! haha!!

  • thefjk

    Posted Nov 28, 2006 5:19 am GMT

    Some guys are now counting their stacks of cash... aaaaaw man!

  • princeofgames90

    Posted Nov 28, 2006 4:42 am GMT

    For me if i baught one i would have keep it

  • Truth_Hurts_U

    Posted Nov 28, 2006 4:10 am GMT

    Ebay is one of many auction sites on the net... I wonder how many were sold that week... 30k -50k?

    Looks like no one loves Sony.

  • MSG-Deathscythe

    Posted Nov 28, 2006 3:41 am GMT

    e-bay should ban auctions like these for a whole month or even two. this will have a couple of good effects: 1. true games will get the consoles; and 2. it won't give sony the idea that americans will pay a $1,000 to $3,000 over the retail price. they are already charging us more than the japanese.

  • pencilpusher69

    Posted Nov 28, 2006 12:54 am GMT

    So the Wii far outsells the PS3, but the headline of this story leads one to believe that the PS3 is the hot seller?

    Ooooookay.

  • ChiliDragon

    Posted Nov 27, 2006 11:59 pm GMT

    "Anyone saying capitalisum is stupid is an idiot themselves. Yeah lets go to a socialist society and then let the government decide who gets a PS3. That free hand out crap is nothing but welfare."

    And when the US government does it, it's called "social security". They even keep the word social in there, to keep things honest

    And my point was that politics and ideologies are probably not what this discussion is about anyway.

  • 2TrickedOut

    Posted Nov 27, 2006 11:51 pm GMT

    When I reserved my PS3 a few people in line were already talking about selling there's. I asked them what systems they own. One guy said he had a 360 and the lady behind him said she was going to get a wii for her son. Its sad the people that got them just to resell. I am a hardcore gamer and it bothers me knowing they never intended to keep them. I could have missed a reserve to someone that wasen't even going to keep it.

  • hiryu3

    Posted Nov 27, 2006 11:44 pm GMT

    Anyone saying capitalisum is stupid is an idiot themselves. Yeah lets go to a socialist society and then let the government decide who gets a PS3. That free hand out crap is nothing but welfare. Don't be mad just because some people have a business mind to buy and sale at a higher price. It is called supply and demand. Airlines do it with airplane tickets, Car dealers do it. For those of you who have jobs they do it too. If you have a problem with greed, go to your job tomorrow and ask for a pay decrease since you have a problem with greed. Stupid idiots. Some people are so stupid they got to stay that way.

  • nocoolnamejim Site moderator

    Posted Nov 27, 2006 11:41 pm GMT

    dholmes19:

    Not to worry. It really didn't take THAT long for Microsoft to fix their supply shortages. I suspect that it won't take that long for Sony to either. Yeah, you might not have one for Christmas, but you'll get one eventually. And ironically enough, I've found that lately I play my PS2 more than I do my Xbox360 anyway.

    This is because I was one of those people who only got a PS2 fairly recently and now i have a nice backlog of games to plow through. That and the fact that most of the games out thus far on the 360 just plain aren't interesting to me. Personally, I am a bit depressed that there doesn't seem to be many good rpg games that are slated to come out for a few months other than the ones that have just come out in November, most of which I've already played and beaten repeatedly. I find myself eagerly awaiting the Sith Lords Restoration Project's completion.

    http://www.team-gizka.org/

    There are other things to do while waiting. Pull out an old favorite. Go play some basketball. Hell, go work some extra hours at your job so you can afford to get a couple more games when you DO get your PS3. These are productive and/or fun uses of time. Blaming a bunch of people for exploiting a gaping (and predictable) loophole to make some extra quick cash is pointless.

  • dholmes19

    Posted Nov 27, 2006 11:23 pm GMT

    must be nice to have enough money to afford to buy 20 PS3's just to turn around and sell them...What about goodwill toward mankind? toward all of us poor gamers out here who have to wait till spring? summer? fall? before we can even think about having a PS3 in our possession?

  • nocoolnamejim Site moderator

    Posted Nov 27, 2006 11:03 pm GMT

    cspiffo:

    "None of what you said makes it right to take advantage of someone else. If you were the inventor or a licensed seller I would say, "sure, charge what you want!" These people have no buisness hustling these people. Their are laws that protect people from scalping at sporting events and Concerts, events which are purely entertainment oriented. Just because these people are doing it on the internet does not make it any more right. "

    I do understand your viewpoint here. There IS something a bit unfair about someone who buys a bunch of PS3's with no intention of playing them at all, but only to take them out of the marketplace and resell them. But I still don't see how you can blame those people for doing something smart and clever to make extra money. There is a very limited supply of PS3's and that is Sony's fault (just like it was Microsoft's fault with the 360) not the ebayer's fault. If Sony/MIcrosoft had made enough consoles to go around, then there would be no extra profit for these ebayers.

    It all gets back to the fact that the PS3 is a LUXURY item, just like a concert ticket or a sporting ticket. It sells for what the market is willing to accept. Right now, that market is willing to accept a large price because of a limited supply. It may not be fair to those of us (and yes, I include myself because I plan on purchasing a PS3 when enough games become available to make it worthwhile) who want a PS3 but cannot have one in part because a lot of people purchased more than one in order to sell their extras.

    But on the other hand, nobody is holding a gun to any of the buyers' heads forcing them to pay the extra price in order to have their PS3 sooner. Each of the people buying the PS3 on ebay for over a grand made a calculated decision that having their PS3 RIGHT NOW rather than two months from now was worth an extra few hundred dollars.

    Your analogy of ticket scalpers, while it does hold SOME merit, really isn't completely accurate because a U2 concert for example is a one time event that then doesn't take place again in the same city for a couple of years if EVER again. The PS3 on the other hand is going to be available next week or the week after or the week after that. The people who are paying over $1000 dollars decided that they were willing to pay extra rather than wait. It isn't like a U2 concert that, if it gets sold out early in part because someone purchased 100 tickets with the intention of using 2, might prevent someone from ever seeing their favorite band in concert live.

    In other words, PS3 really isn't a limited supply product indefinitely. It is in the short term, and since it is only a short term supply limitation, why shouldn't those people who want one enough to pay far more than the next person be rewarded by getting on when the rest of us don't?

    (And yes, I'm a U2 fan who has never seen his favorite band live. But I also realize that if I REALLY wanted to badly enough, I could do so if I was willing to shell out the cash.)

  • BassBoy45

    Posted Nov 27, 2006 9:59 pm GMT

    Wow, a lot less than I thought

  • FFXIsAstyanax

    Posted Nov 27, 2006 9:53 pm GMT

    "Whoever runs this site - PLEASE take any PS3 news off of the XBOX page. It's very annoying. I click on the 360 icon so I can read news on the 360, not PS3."
    -rbunnell

    umm... try reading there \/ \/ \/ \/

    "The Web site also released information on sales of the Xbox 360, reporting that 331 systems were sold between November 12 and November 24 for an average of $421."

  • PoindeJ

    Posted Nov 27, 2006 9:44 pm GMT

    The amount of PS3s that were re-sold is pretty disgusting (Wiis too, I wasn't expecting that...but at least they didn't go for double the price). Seriously, when we were in line for the Wii, people came up to us more than once to see if any of us wanted to buy a PS3...they were declined heavily.

    The thing is, the people that profit from this extravaganza are those who buy and re-sell the PS3 and eBay itself. The people who lose are those who buy the system for close to double the cost (though they may not think so or know) and those who really want the console (and probably would've gotten one if it weren't for those who resold it) but aren't willing to/can't pay upwards of $1000 for it. The people who should actually get the console in the interests of the market (people who actually want it are way more likely to buy more games, accessories, etc.) aren't getting it, which really just screws everyone over.

    I don't really blame the sellers, though; I blame the buyers. Honestly, doesn't it make infinitely more sense to just wait for a few months, or maybe even weeks, and use that saved $500 to buy 8 games? I don't get it. Are there really that many rich, lazy/impatient people out there?

  • powerslave88

    Posted Nov 27, 2006 9:25 pm GMT

    HAHAHAHA

  • rbunnell

    Posted Nov 27, 2006 9:20 pm GMT

    Whoever runs this site - PLEASE take any PS3 news off of the XBOX page. It's very annoying. I click on the 360 icon so I can read news on the 360, not PS3. I noticed that there is no news of the 360 when you click the PS3 icon. So, do yourselves a favor and keep your customers happy - TAKE IT OFF. Happy customers are returning customers. Unhappy customers say bye bye.

  • Jerrymiru

    Posted Nov 27, 2006 9:10 pm GMT

    This is just sad, for us hardcore gamers.
    But to the capitalist, this is good.
    Still though... I just don't really think that it's right...

  • ecno13

    Posted Nov 27, 2006 8:27 pm GMT

    im glad so many of those ps3 sales where being made by ps3 fans...... Lawl!

    rip offs never are fun.

  • Ryuku

    Posted Nov 27, 2006 7:47 pm GMT

    to Undox .. hahha .. your totally right .. people are such idiots ..

  • undox

    Posted Nov 27, 2006 7:44 pm GMT

    If you pay one cent more than what it worth, you are a sucker. Wait a few months, and you can buy the system for what it is worth.

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