Nate Lanxon
Nate Lanxon is CNET UK's Senior Editor of News and Features, and covers every aspect of technology for Crave. He also enjoys popular-science books, obscure Japanese animation and plays 'technical metal' on the drums, whatever that is.
Thursday 9 August 2007, 4:30pm
Why is GAME selling second-hand PS3s?
Yesterday I decided the only thing better than carrying heavy bags from Sainsbury's was buying the new Colin McRae game, DiRT, for my 360. As I browsed the shelves for some discounted bargains, I noticed to my surprise that the retailer GAME was selling pre-owned PlayStation 3s.
Seriously, do people care so little about this super-hyped console that they're selling it so soon after it's released!? For crying out loud, people still own original Mega Drives 17 years after it came out. (Did you know its CPU ran at 7MHz? Bless.)
GAME currently offers £200 cash for a PlayStation 3, or £250 if you're part-exchanging it for something else in the store. That means some people, somewhere, paid upwards of £400 for a console, then decided they're happy to trade it in for a £200 loss after a matter of months (perhaps to buy a new 360 and its way better games?).
I own a NES, a SNES, two PS1s, a PS2, an Xbox 360, my first gaming PC and my current gaming PC. Not once, in the whole history of my life as a gamer, have I ever been tempted to sell any one of these machines, even when they were worth a tidy sum of cash in a store or on eBay.
Could it be that the PS3 isn't selling as well as Sony hoped because everyone's just buying second-hand models? There's no chance I'm buying a PS3 until it hovers around the £320 mark. But I can't deny seeing an as-new model on sale for just over £300 was very tempting indeed.
Maybe I'll wait 'til I've completed Colin McRae, then we'll talk.
Comments on this post
I would like to purchase that ps3 for $200 where is it and do you have a contact number, i want it asap!, send me an email on henrytheforth@yahoo.com, please contact me as soon as possible
Posted by Anonymous on Wed 22 August, 2007 4:42 AM
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Well said, i own all of the consoles apart from a PS3 and i would not trade any of them in. I still even play my NES and my kids do.
Posted by Steve on Wed 5 September, 2007 2:49 PM
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This seems like a pretty ignorant post. You are very lucky indeed that everything seems to have worked out financially for you but fo some they have to buy things on credit. Occasionally this means they fall behind on the payments and have to sell the item asap for as much (or little) as they can get in order to help repay the debt. Incidentally, I'm not one of these people but have you given the above possibility any thought at all? Was this post really to comment on the people selling PS3s so soon or jst a way to show off that you have some retro consoles?
Posted by Ben on Tue 6 November, 2007 6:31 PM
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Ben, Whilst I appreciate what you are saying these people should not have bought the consoles in the first place if they could not afford them! I have never had the money to just go out and but a console but have saved the money and when I had enough I went and bought one. Too many people choose the easy option of credit and end up paying the price. If you want something bad enough then start saving before it comes out. You get long enough to do it with all the delays these days!!
Posted by Luke on Wed 7 November, 2007 2:16 PM
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At the end of the day, if people can go out and spend £400 on a console then they must be secure with money, otherwise why spend it? - surely the money could go on better things! I must admit I would never sell any of my consoles and I take great pride in my collection, I would not however fork out "alot" of money if i couldnt afford it in the first place.
Posted by Dean F on Tue 17 June, 2008 8:02 AM
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C'mon dude the ps3 rocks the only reason the 360 out sells it is because its made from cheap parts and they melt and such,, i am a proud owner of both 360 and ps3 but in terms of quality the ps3 is way better it doesn't feel all cheap playing it like the 360, if you check out the tech aspects the stuff they use in the console is far better and is actually expensive to make. My 360 had to be replace as the graphics card melted which is a COMMON fault, which is stupid. No problems as of yet with the ps3 even upgrading the hard drive wont void the warrenty like it will on a 360, i have a 200 gb ps3 now which is amazing! it took me 5 mins to upgrade it and the drive cost 40 quid. its more expensive but well worth the money, most 360 games you can get on it anyway.
Posted by Oli on Mon 22 June, 2009 5:47 PM
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oli i do agree with you that the ps3 is better built but come on the xbox kicks that very expensive george foreman grill away game companies are now refusing to make the games because the ps3 is such a pain in the arse to make the only thing going for the ps3 is the blu-ray but you can go into asda,tesco's now and buy them for just over a hundred as for the xbox melting will agree with you but then the ps3 has got its issues now with the yellow light(xbox 360 r.r.o.d) and the laser refusing to read the disc's
Posted by carl on Mon 13 July, 2009 1:43 PM
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