Supply and Demand Fails PS3 Hoarder

You’re a 23-year old young man with a girlfriend that you’ve known since you were about eight. You want to marry her. She’s the perfect girl, after all, she understands your idiotic ploy to nab some cash to buy her an engagement ring. In fact, she supplies you with clean clothes and snacks while you stand in line like a dope outside of Wal-Mart, just so that you can snag a coveted PS3 system, which you will then post on eBay at a horrendously high profit margin, and make your fortune.

Can’t go wrong, right? Christmas is approaching, the PS3 is going to be HAWT, and everyone is going to want one the second it comes out. They’ll pay you thousands for a single console.

Wrong.

As Derek O’Brien found out, trying to figure out the consumer market is not always as easy as it seems. He bought one PS3 from Wal-Mart for $649 +tx, and then splurged on a second nest egg from a scalper outside for only $1800. He thought he’d make more than enough to recoup his investment by selling high on eBay in the mad consumer rush of Christmas. Unfortunately, with demand for the console going in fizzles and spurts rather than fireworks, O’Brien now has two PS3’s in his closet that he can’t sell, no engagement ring, and a girlfriend that’s probably a little on the cranky side.

Guess the scalpers made the best move. Prey upon the greed and hopelessness of those lined up before them.

Now, if Mr. O’Brien could fork over upwards of $2500 to buy a couple of PS3’s hot off the truck, why then, in the name of intelligence, could he not have spent that money on a more-than-decently-sized engagement ring for his beloved?

Greedy greedy never gets. I might give him a call for one of those PS3’s though, if he’s willing to let it go for a fiver and a case of beer. Word is that he’s trying to unload the systems, at a loss, over at craigslist.

Via | The Globe and Mail (I would expect something like this in The Sun really…) through Game|Life