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Update: Europe PS3 Sales Down 80%, eBay Prices Makes Sense

April 3, 2007, 3:05 pm

I wondered a few days ago about why the UK eBay prices for the PS3 were ridiculously low; I speculated that demand wasn’t nearly as high as the media was reporting. My conclusion was based on the eBay prices in Asia and America in the weeks following their respective launches (+100% markups), and then noticing the huge margin deflation often UK eBay prices (+20% markups). It seem reality has caught up to Europe’s PS3 market. Sales dropped over 80% this week. That has to be some kind of record.

This makes sense after Gigio (see prediction comment #3) pointed out that Europe has much more restrictive return policies. A cooling reseller market would be far riskier than in the US, and nearly guarantee plummeting prices due to the flood of supply as people try to get rid of them before the console loses even more demand. This also explains the pages and pages of auctions that were below retail price.

In contrast, the Wii is pretty much unavailable world-wide almost five months after its release.

I feel sorry for Sony, but they really brought them onto themselves. Bundling Blu-Ray was the dumbest thing they ever did. They could have taken this generation by storm had they kept the Blu-Ray off of the PS3 and drop the price $200 as a result.

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    • D.Vader

      First off — this is a NON-STORY any popular electronics has a lull in sales after the initial launch. It’s due to supply issues. Also I don’t think people are going to ebay in Europe because they saw all the BS surrounding the ebay Auctions in america (pictures of the console, boxes, instruction manauls, complete fraud). The supply should be steady enough soon enough that ebay will be a moot point for obtaining a PS3.

      Blu-Ray is required for Next Gen gaming. Look at a game like Gears of War. It’s very short. Why? Because it uses technology called Texture Streaming. Texture Streaming requires about 1GB PER LEVEL. So a Standard DVD will be able to fit maybe 7 levels including Videos, Music and Dialog.

      The last generation of gaming systems were filling DVDs. The storage budget available was being maxed out. Now add high-definition gaming into the mix (larger and more polygons, detailed textures) and that DVD doesn’t really have much room left.

      Resistance: Fall of Man would have never been possible on 1 DVD. The game takes up 14GB and doesn’t utilize Texture Streaming. If it had, Resistance would have easily ballooned into 30-40GB game.

      The Wii is basically a spruced up gamecube with a new controller (using technology that could be added to ANY game system). There really isn’t too much “Next Gen” about the system itself.

      Also there have been rumors of Nintendo holding back supply on purpose. It’s a fad that is starting to slow as PS3 is narrowing the gap in sales with the Wii especially in Japan (which was 4:1 for launch and now down to 2.4:1).

      The thing that hurts PS3 is that it’s a true next gen system with true next gen capabilities. The development environment isn’t totally abstracted (like Xbox 360), which makes 360 easier to program for, but the XNA environment puts a ceiling on the performance. PS3′s dev kits can give you direct access to hardware, similar to the way PS2′s dev kit did. Graphics featured in games like God Of War would not have been possible on PS2 in a completely abstracted program environment.

      Stop spinning news that isn’t news.

    • http://michiknows.com Michi

      For the record, I refrained from bringing in unrelated issues into this post. Topics like the need for more capacity, what defines next gen, development ease on the 360, exclusive titles, and console sale ratios are not discussed here and are purposely omitted.

      Lastly, the issue of supply makes no sense. You can find Xbox 360′s on eBay, brand new. Many people buy and sell unopened items on eBay. And many people heard of the “BS” where victims were duped into buying pictures of the original Xbox five years ago, but that didn’t stop 360 prices from having 50% markups when it was out. The PS3 is in some trouble now; the question is how much. It’s a pretty bold assumption to believe otherwise on a system that’s been out for only a week with auctions barely going for retail.

    • D.Vader

      That’s because MS had shit supply when they launched. The supply they had was poorly thrown together equipment. They were also completely ahead with the first NexGen system which offered them a unique position. The issue of pictures, boxes and what ever you want to sell but the console and make it look like the console always happens during the launch cycle of these things. I am sure that is one thing keeping people away. This has already happened with them before with the 360.

      People don’t need to goto eBay for a PS3. If your supplies are high, you can get them into stores and into peoples hands, no third party like eBay. How this can’t been seen as a plus is beyond me.

      The PS3 for Europe, was a near sell out. Considering the lofty price tag this is a HUGE victory for Sony. Sure the platform still has a way to go, but at this point it seems the main rival is Wii. Since PS3 has pretty much done better then 360 in most territories when you compare the same time periods in reference to launch.

    • Gigio

      Does anyone have actual sale numbers on these? (i found some last year data on google.. but too lazy to keep looking)

    • Alex

      Blu-ray was a great move by Sony. It could harm PS3 sales but Sony market is not only on consoles and it will represent a great boost for Blu-ray victory over HD-DVD.
      Production costs will fall very fast for the blu-ray driver (and all).