Sunday, October 15, 2006

The P is for Pandemonium


Playstation 3 preorders in America have been surprisingly orderly, mostly facilitated by the conservative unit forecast provided by retail giant Gamestop, which swallowed up its competitor, EB Games, back in March.

Gamestop publicly announced to american consumers that preorders for the playstation 3 console would be available come Tuesday 10th, but in extremely limited quantities. Most stores were allotted a measly 6 units, two of which could be preordered by store employees, while certain larger (or merely more fortunate) stores were blessed with a paltry 16 units.

Gamers arrived at store fronts at 5am, hoping to get their hands on the few preorders available at the local store. From all reports, preorders went rather routinely and smoothly. As quickly as it began, it was over. That is, in America.

Here in Japan, circumstance has put many gamers on edge. Despite the console launching in the land of the rising sun nine days before America, we are not only cursed with a quarter of the units, but most stores have no idea if preorders will even take place. Rakuten, Amazon, and even Tsutaya seemed completely in the dark about how they would go about holding preorders for the Playstation 3 system.

Going into a local store and inquiring about a yoyaku (the japanese word for reservation) usually garners the usual japanese response: "I'm sorry, but we have no begun reservations yet. Please be sure to check back often."

Websites have begun to spring up, with a huge chart of online stores, and when they are likely to begin preorders for units. Some site have even announced when they will start preorders online; something that is completely alien to those accustomed to american websites, that quietly open preorders for new hardware.

This alone isn't enough. Most stores are adhering to the age old "first come, first serve" mentality, which, given the product in question, is likely to cause pandemonium. Uncertainty has become the name of the game, and it feels as if even Sony themselves doesn't know what's going on.

As I write this, I'm camping a certain popular online store, waiting for preorders to open later today. I've become a slave to consumerism, but it's a sad truth that I will be able to easily justify when I have a machine in my hands that will take care of my gaming needs for the next six years.

This is going to happen all over again, once Wii hits in December.

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Awesome writeup, Nayan.
In my humble opinion, the preordering hype is a clever plotted marketing stunt/instrument to further fuel the anticipation of the console. By reading reports on "sold out on Day 1" and so on, the masses get the impression that the console is quite desired and therefore desirable to oneself.
In the current Edge 168 is a fine article of 30 years of VG hardware releases and the impact of "Day 1" and preordering on the overall console lifecycles. Worth a read if one is interested.

12:04 PM  
Blogger Nayan said...

I'll check it out. Always up for an insightful read on a familiar subject.

7:06 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

OnkelC, intresting theory... but I don't doubt for a second the hardware shortages are real. Certainly, upto a million units could've been released day one in all three territories, and a similar pandemonium would've existed.

But you're on point in the sense that, the positive press from this sellout will be of more long term benefit then adequately supplying demand at launch (not that they could supply that demand anyway!)

9:36 PM  

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