If anything, this past Christmas shopping season will be remembered by gamers as the year of shortages, due to the wide unavailability of the PS3 and Wii. But this situation–at least for the PS3–seems to be changing, with the announcement of more available units at GameStop and EB Games stores.
GameStop’s COO, Daniel DeMatteo, said the PS3 was available at "hundreds of the company’s 3,700 outlets". According to the New York Times, Paul-Jon McNealy, an analyst from American Technology Research, said that Sony was on the track to recovery. "It sounds like they really are ramping up production. They’ve gotten their feet underneath them."
The new supply of PS3s will be good news to those who have been waiting to purchase one since late last year, but ironically, the extra supply of Sony’s next-gen game console is quietly sitting on GameStop store shelves. DeMatteo said that this was the first time PS3s have remained unsold at the franchise stores. Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest super retail store chain, has had a steady supply of PS3s available for sale on their website since the latter part of December 2006. Other retail outlets such as Toys ‘R Us and Circuit City also have stock readily available.
Whether Sony has ramped up production, or the extra units are simply the result of waning consumer interest in the new console remains to be seen. The report of high sales for the other three consoles available on the market (Wii, 360, and even the PlayStation 2) could indicate that the second possibility–a potentially ominous sign for Sony–may be the case.
