Thousands of PS3 units hit eBay on 1st day of sale at 3 to 4 times retail price

Nov. 18, 2006 12:00 AM
If you didn't camp out for the Sony PlayStation 3, you weren't likely to land one Friday. Well, unless you could put down plenty of cash to snag one from thousands that immediately went on sale online for three to four times the system's retail price. The basic 20-gigabyte game console retails for $499; the more popular 60-gigabyte version sells for $599 at stores.

However, one unit was going for $10,100 on eBay. Many were listed at $1,500 to $2,500.Such stores as Toys "R" Us, Best Buy and Fry's Electronics sold out within minutes. Several retailers pre-sold systems, and some didn't get as many as expected, angering some customers.

Retailers contacted couldn't say when they expect to get more units. Sony promised to ship 400,000 PS3 units for the U.S. launch Friday and 1 million units by the end of the year. Sony had expected 2 million units for sale this year.The scarcity of the game system led some diehard buyers to stand in line two and three days in advance.