After seeing all the countless reports of PS3 pre-orders, and how few consoles EB/Gamestops were getting, I kind of felt bad for Sony fans, but only while wearing an evil grin. Well, Wii pre-orders were this morning. At first, I thought a Wii pre-order isn’t even necessary given the four million units Nintendo is releasing at launch. But, I figured, it couldn’t hurt. Unfortunately, I kind of woke up late (this is usual), and only got to my local EB/Gamestop at 9:30, a half hour before they opened. There were already lots of people, in fact I would have been 25th in line. But the guy holding the list told me they were only going to have 11 Wii units. I left confused.

11!? How is that possible, that is actually less than the number of PS3s they were getting. You would think I’m upset, but I’m actually more confused than anything. What are you playing at EB/G? It’s clear your full of shit. What would you have to gain from severely underestimating your launch numbers. I know what you have to lose: My money. So it got me thinking, why would EB/G not allow more pre-orders? I thought of one and Chris thought of one.

1. EB/G completely dropped the ball on Xbox 360 orders. Before the consoles release, they continued to sell and sell pre-orders, even after surpassing the possibility to fulfill them. The people did not respond kindly. It was a mess. In all actuality, a retailer doesn’t gain much as far as pre-orders go. They don’t cost the consumer anything more, all it does is prematurely pigeonhole a consumer into buying from them. To be honest, retailers probably don’t want to sell pre-orders for something, unless it’s something that they either know exactly how many they will get, or something that has a greater supply than demand, the latter of which is irrelevant to pre-orders. Maybe EB/G figures that by being super conservative in their pre-order allotment, they will have no pre-order fulfillment problems.

2. Chris had this theory, and I think there is some truth to it. Nintendo knows how many consoles they can give to retailers, but they aren’t committing any number to them until they see how the first round of sales goes. This allows Nintendo to be more flexible in their distribution. That way Nintendo won’t keep sending units to some run down K-Mart, but will instead send them to a nice big box store with an upper-middle class demographic clientele.

It looks to me like the age of pre-orders is meeting an abrupt end because of several factors: Limited supply (duh), Underestimated/un-estimateable demand, and flexible distribution processes.

As for me, I’m gunna hit up a Wal-Mart at midnight (24 hour), if no luck, then I’m going to camp out at a Target or Toys R Us (Best Buys seem too obvious). Good luck to us all.

I know, I’ve been out of it for a while. Let’s get back into things with a little old Sony smack talk.

After months of speculations and rumors the time is finally here. No, not time to actually buy a console, it’s time to pre-order one! My arch-nemesis EB/Gamestop will be taking PS3 pre-orders tomorrow morning. Here’s the details:

• Each store will receive 16 PS3’s with there chosen distribution of core or premium systems.
• Employees will only be able to set aside two for purchase.
• Pre-orders will only be taken until those 16 consoles have been spoken for. Even then, your pre-order guarantees you nothing.

The official word from Gamespot:

“GameStop and EB Games will begin accepting limited pre-orders for the PlayStation 3 console on Tuesday, October 10, on a first come, first served basis. Due to extremely limited supply, we expect to deplete this allocation very quickly, most likely in minutes. We will not accept additional pre-orders at this time. To avoid an unnecessary trip we strongly recommend you call your local store to determine availability. A $100 reservation deposit is required, which can be funded with cash, credit or trade. As we cannot control production and shipping issues by the manufacturer, a reservation deposit does not guarantee receipt of a system available to purchase at launch. Reservations/Purchases are limited to 1 per household.”

I talked to an employee tonight about it, he also alluded to Wii pre-orders taking place a couple of days later, and requiring $50 down. No thank you. Given that Nintendo is actually making more Wiis than they thought they could, I honestly think you will be able to march into any big box retailer and grab one. No camping equipment required. As for the PS3, it seems people are even camping out for the pre-order. I just have to say, I’m so glad I’m not a Sony fanboy. It’s so much easier and cheaper being a Nintendo fanboy.