If you've been looking for Wiis or Playstation 3s you've probably noticed they're not just sitting around, at least not that I can tell.

While shipments seem to be trickling in, I don't believe any store has either console just piled up.

I went to my local Best Buy Sunday night to buy an incredibly over-priced HDMI switcher for my PS3 and cable box and stopped in on the gaming section to check things out.

There obviously weren't any PS3s or Wiis around, and I sorta dreaded going up to the blue shirt to ask if any were in the back. I knew there weren't, but had to check, and expected a melting look of disdain when I asked.

Fortunately, the blue shirt had pity on me, just spewing out the next-gen console facts. Both flavors of 360s were readily available. The last Wii shipment the store received came in that very day, but sold out quickly. The last Playstation 3 shipment the store got was a "surprise shipment" that arrived a few days after the launch day and sold out immediatly.

While Best Buy was expecting more Wii in before Christmas, they weren't expecting any more PS3s, but the employee said they could always get more "surprise shipments" of Sony's console.

I suspect what this really means is that they don't plan on advertising PS3 stock because it's a trickle, but that they will be advertising Wii stock because enough are showing up to warrant the inevitable lines that form.

I asked how I was supposed to figure out when a PS3 was in the store for sale and she said, "if you see people running to the back of the store and shouting on their cell phones, we probably have Playstation 3s in stock."

Yeah, that or someone's robbing the place. Brian Crecente

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