I bought a Wii from eBay for $400, and I got Zelda with it. So I ended up paying roughly $100 over the retail price. The catch is, I'm stationed in Japan in the Armed Forces, and out PX/BX stores could give two shits about video game stock. Still haven't seen Gears of War on the shelf, and they're still stocking GBA Micros. Half the PS2 section is old sports games that no one will ever buy.

And they're holding a drawing in a WEEK to see who will be lucky enough to be ALLOWED to buy a PS3/Wii from the limited stock (like, 2) they managed to get.

So no, I don't feel particularly stupid for spending $100 extra to get something that is otherwise denied me by circumstance. Some people have literally no choice but eBay. Thanks for generalizing.

"They're not that rare."

Have you tried buying a Wii lately? Yes they are that rare!

I don't see how it is anymore stupid to buy an over priced Wii on Ebay than a PS3. If anything it's a little less bad seeing as your being ripped of for somewhat less money.

"Think a little harder. They retail for $250."

If you can find them anywhere. Thats the whole point of ebay.

Only ~28k units of PS3s were shipped? At one point just after launch there was over 36k PS3 system auctions!

exactly, don't pay over retail. it just doesn't make any sense. now if they didn't make them anymore you have to go with the market, but they will make millions more. patience is a virtue and a wallet saver people.

"Stupidity"?

I personally wouldn't pay a $180 markup... but it's only about a 50% markup from the take home price you'll pay anyway for a fairly basic setup ($520 vs $340)

$40 controller (buy retail - good luck on finding nunchuck)
$50 1 game (buy retail)
$250 Wii (pay $180 markup to $430)

So you pay out $340 if you wait in a massive line and pay retail. Or you pay out $520 to get it on ebay, and pick up accssories/games locally.

But I don't know where you get the idea that they're not "rare" as in hard to find.

In northern VA, the TOYS R US midnight launch easily had double the number of people as consoles.

The next morning, I did drivebys on almost every major dept store and toy store (target walmart bestbuy circuitcity compusa kmart sears - didnt bother with ebgames) in my area between 7:00 and 9:00 AM and NOBODY had a line that you could join and have any chance at one.

I then called EVERY one of those brand retailers up (all stores in 30 miles) and all had sold out in their original line.

There was NOTHING out there.

$180 markup is nothing, for a wealthy or upper class person with a job. It's worth $180 not to have to wait in line all night to get one.

I've called at least 5 retailers every day this week and nobody has managed to keep restock.

The only people I personally know around her who have them waited in line a minimum of 8 hours.

Yes, I know that there will be a bulge in supply in early December, but if you want one now, they're scarce, at least in No VA, and probably many other places.

And heck, $430 is still cheaper than a low end PS3 retail.

:)

I paid $350 including overnight shipping for mine on eBay. Do I feel like a fool? No, because I was there on launch night at my local Wal-Mart when a shoving match broke out between some Ukrainians and blacks. Needless to say I didn't stay to find out how it ended. I spent the rest of my break trying to find a Wii without success. Not a single store in Syracuse had one.

My extra $100 bought me not getting into a fight over a $250 piece of electronics and the convenience of being able to continue studying and not running to and calling my Wal-Mart here (the only place that would sell it within 40 minutes of driving) twice daily to see if they have any yet! Very worth it IMO.

I've been watching www.refreshthing.com/wii/ trying to find a Wii online and haven't had any luck all week. I've been calling stores and haven't been able to find one yet. While waiting in line on release day (where I wasn't close enough to the front of the line to get one) people were trying to sell their spots in line for $300 bucks (which no one wanted to spend that much money on) and the number of people in line that didn't even know how the Wii worked exactly just there to buy one to sell on Ebay. It sucks.

Not that rare. Are you insane?

Yes they are that rare. People just this last Sunday lined up at each bestbuy here in Dallas. 100 people at each location. I camped out for 5 hours and got the last one 52 of 52 availible.

Not only that but controllers, and Zelda are also impossible to find around here.

jpelles

If you know anyone that lives close to Mineral Wells they have every game in stock and multiple classic and nunchuck controllers.

My wife just called the Super Target in Weatherford to see if they had any Wiis in stock. First time she asked for the electronics and the operator hung up before she could ask. She called back and asked for the electronics department and the operator got all bitchy and asked what she was calling for. My wife said she was looking for a Wii and the operator was like, "We don't have any and we don't know when we'll get any." So my wife asked if she should just call back every day or so to check back and the operator said, "I guess so. Everyone else is." Bitches.

Funny, I was in the local Toys R Us store yesterday and strolled over to the video gaming section out of curiosity, to see if they had any wii's. Of course there were no ps3's. but somewhat unsurprising, the shelves were stocked with wii aplenty. accessories, games, controllers, all the accoutrements. And I might add that the store is two blocks away from UMASS campus.

I just got a Wii yesterday at the Meijer pretty much a block away from my house (Columbus, OH). It really comes down to making phone calls periodically and I also avoid the obvoius stores (Gamestop, EBGames, Best Buy, etc) as those are the ones all of the other geeks are calling. Nope, you have to go to the stores that not everyone thinks of and believe me they are out there!

Good Luck Wii hunters, glad I no longer have to hunt!

Looking at ebay, the price is going UP, not down right now.

In defense of the article's author, there are areas in the country that did not sell out immediately (I know the New York Nintendo store had thousands initially and still had a little stock for about a day or so), and somebody from BFE posted that their walmart had some still... and somebody in L.A. posted they had stock at their best buy...

But generally as soon as people find out, the things disappear within an hour as the finder calls their buddies.

I only got mine through a generous friend who sat with 2 family members at a Costco line from 3AM - opening, then till 11AM to be processed, and picked up 3, sending me one Fed Ex.

I'm really hoping to get one for my brother when the inevitable shopping fatigue hits the mob in early December, and I can sneak in at that 2 million supply from Nintendo.

Think about it from the perspective of a working parent whose 8 year old will be heartbroken if Santa doesn't drop a Wii down the chimney. After 40+ hours a week, do you really want to be scouring department stores or waiting in lines when you can get one for a $150 markup online? It's all about opportunity cost - most people's time's worth more than that to them.

And they are that rare - I've hit every department and electronics store on my way home from work since launch day with no luck. (I obviously don't have kids. Or a life.)

$100-150 to secure the Christmas your kid wants without killing yourself? Sounds perfectly reasonable to me.

"Only ~28k units of PS3s were shipped? At one point just after launch there was over 36k PS3 system auctions!"

A lot of those were not for PS3 but just had "PS3" in the heading.

@ Robo2112: No, because I was there on launch night at my local Wal-Mart when a shoving match broke out between some Ukrainians and blacks.

There something you want to say about Ukranians and blacks? You know, because "people" would have sufficed.

Everyone was talking about what percentage of the PS3s were on ebay...but another issue has been forgotten - how many Wiis have been bought by companies to give away as promotions?!?! It seems like everyone from Comedy Central to Newegg to my local liquor store is giving one away every hour/day. I'm going to end up subscribing to 50 different company email newsletters before this is all said and done.

After an entire week of e-camping all the wii-tracker sites, I finally managed to get in on a multi-minute opening for the honot of being ripped off by gametop's mega-bundle. I figured that if someone wanted to bend me over a barrel, I'd only yell "daddy" if the games bundle didn't make me buy 3 spongebob games. Still, when that thing rang up with a 50ish dollar handling fee and tax, I almost awoke from my fever-dream and hit the back button. One "OK" button later I had resigned myself to my fate, but now complications with processing are giving me a graceful way out... and I think I'm going to take it. I'm just going to sulk in my corner for a month so I don't have to hunt all over creation to find the right combination of console, games, and controllers at a sane price. Why is this so hard? Sheesh.

dcartist - I've been noticing the Wii prices going up - but the PS3 prices are going down (averaging about $900 - $950 when I looked this morning for the PS3, and about $400 - $500 for the Wii).

It's an interesting situation. The PS3 eBay prices crashed hard, but if the supply is so low, the prices should be going up - unless demand has lowered, which is possible (people may think that paying $1000 for a console is just too much right now).

I'm curious to see what happens come Sunday morning when the latest round of Wiis go on sale. I've got 2 coworkers looking for some - will this be something everyone can get their hands on, or will the expectation that you can get your hands on it drive up demand so high that, even by Christmas, few can?

Either way, Nintendo is coming out looking very good this holiday season.

If you have the money, why not?

I personally would never buy a new console on eBay, but that's mostly because I couldn't afford to pay $400-$500 for a Wii.

I fully agree with timothymichaelclark. It's all about opportunity cost. I'm sorry, but $180 is not a lot money when you are a working parent with kids. It doesn't make you "stupid" for not spending two months obsessing over finding a game console and checking internet sites for availability every two seconds.

@Robo2112

The same thing happened at both the Circuit City and Best Buy over at Carousel, well, except no Ukrainians were involved as far as I could tell. Circuit City bombed the Wii launch like nothing I've ever seen (save for the PS3).

Nintendo's managed to have the "it" thing this Christmas - both because there's little hope of finding a PS3 and because it's generated a lot of positive buzz.

The PS3 would have been huge whenever it dropped down - there was no reason for Sony not to delay the launch until 12.12 or something and have twice the number of systems available.

I have seen the Wal-Mart bundles go up for sale and sit at available for most of the day. However since you have to pick 6 games that are not that good, you will easily have $200.00 worth of games that you (or nobody else) will want.

So screw it, skip the frustration of the bundle and roll the dice on getting a decent price on Ebay.

I however did not think that Wii Ebay sales would be good. But the demand is high. And it seems that anyone that plays the Wii, wants a Wii.

Wii? "Not that rare?" Spare me, I've searched every damn store around here daily and even combed most of the east coast when I went on vacation last week. Nary a Wii to be found. "Not that rare" my you-know-what-.

@ harkonnen
Offended? It's what happened and more descriptive than "people."

@ petrieslastword
I have no doubts about that! That mall is crazy. I left the theater there on Black Friday Eve around 11:45pm, and people were already going at it in front of the Circuit City. Some lady got trampled at Best Buy according to my friend's brother who works there. She refused medical attention because she "needed to shop."

Anyways, my point remains $100-150 is small price to pay in order to avoid that kind of shit, for those who can afford it and cannot find a Wii in stores.

eBay = Wanting It Now as opposed to waiting until Spring when the market begins to get saturated. Remember the 360 launch? What are people supposed to do at Christmas? :P

Props to our armed servics reader who got his. Enjoy!

"Offended? It's what happened and more descriptive than "people.""

What does their ethnicity/nationality have to do with their fighting over a PS3? And how do we get any better sense of them fighting by knowing that?

Hegemonyhog, you took the words right out of my mouth.

I feel better educated for knowing it, so please don't exercise your desire for censorship around here, or around me. Thankyou.

Socrates, I'm prettty sure that the major giveaways (Comedy Central) were probably part of Nintendo's marketing plan (they usually are). You probably have a point with the smaller mom and pop stores though.

Ok, why is it that people that shop on Ebay are exponentially more stupid than EVERY OTHER CONSUMER THIS HOLIDAY SEASON? This instantly dispels reggie's bullshit PR that people in the wii launch lines weren't there to sell wiis on Ebay. I cant wait for all the Nintendorks to get their Wii's. Then we can finally see just how this thing does among real gamers, gamers that are on the fence, etc.

@aestheticity

So you'll know not to stand near the blacks and Ukranians next time, lest you find yourself in the middle of the fistfight. Fair enough.

robo2112

Why did you have to call it "black Friday"? Couldn't you just say "Friday"? Racist!

true.

NO one needs, a console, THAT bad, to buy it for 3xthe price....

NO ONE

retards >.>

i got 2 wii on launch day. sold 1 for $550. ebay is great.

Honestly, if anyone here finds Wiis regularly in their area, please tell me where you're living. Because buying plane tickets, flying there, and buying one myself will still be better than the crap I've been going through to find one. I hit up Best Buy, Target, Walmart, Rhino Video Games, Gamestop, EB Games, Sears, and JC Penneys every day, calling them in between visits. Nothing. I've tried finding "mom and pop" stores in the area, but I can't find a single one (it seems all of the obscure ones closed out of spite for me.) I even spend class time with my laptop constantly on refresh-thing.
I would just hit up eBay, but the extra 150$ is a bit hard to justify, and I don't trust anyone on there.
Until then, I'll just have to keep sleeping in Best Buy's electronics department.

it's all relative. if you're a professional making $300 per hour, why would you stand in line? rather than shell out $300 more?

i paid 435 shipped for a wii including zelda on ebay. i dont know where you live, or how many wiis your local suppliers have in stock, but they -are- that rare. and, anyone interested in buying a wii was probably aware of the retail price. thanks.

Okay so we know Japan gets a whole slew of extra VC games. What about the channels? They're delayed for the US and we've heard nothing about the Opera Browser.

No word about why it was delayed or for how long.. absolutely nothing. Even Opera's website still lists November 19th and December 2nd for their browser's launch for US and Japan respectively.

So wii customers are the idiots? when sony fanboys are paying several thousand for an overpriced console with no games? Sheesh, yeah that's using logic there, article writer. Man these get worse everyday.

If you really want one off eBay and don't want to pay an EXTRAVAGANT price, stay up until 2 am, set yourself a limit (for instance, mine was no more than $100 over the total retail cost of whatever I was buying), and bid on anything ending soon. Bid on ONE AT A TIME THOUGH. You wouldn't want to end up with negative feedback for skipping out on three Wiis. Standard auction sniping rules apply. I don't normally advocate auction sniping but I was outbid by $1.00 twice in a row in the remaining 3 seconds, so fight dirty if you have to.