The PS3 Wall of Shame (eBay scalpers)

eBay has made some special rules for people selling their PS3s at auction. For one thing, you need a picture of the console in your possession and a picture of the receipt as well. Obviously, this is to prevent people from selling imaginary PS3s, but it has had the interesting side effect of giving us a glimpse into the lives of the people who are selling the machines. This thread on Cheapassgamer.com (free registration required) shows dozens of the more interesting pictures that people have posted with their auctions.

An incredible number of people have bought these consoles with the sole intention of selling them on eBay, and you can see this in some of the pictures. A lot of them are clearly not gamers, and you have to wonder how some of them scraped together the money get the PS3 they are selling. Many people included their kids in the picture, perhaps in an attempt to appear likeable, or to convince buyers that they need the money. There are almost as many that include partially clad (or even apparently naked) women holding the PS3. And a surprising number include sob stories about needing to pay for school, bills, or other expenses. Many of these people have set very high starting points for their auctions, such as $50,000 or $100,000, apparently hoping that some rich person with a soft heart will take pity on them.

Finally, one thing that is striking about these photos is that so many people have more than one system. Some people have as many as 10 (see above). Selling one system doesn’t seem so bad, but it’s people like this who are just making the PS3 supply situation worse than it already is. Ironically, these people’s dreams of striking it rich are probably just that — dreams. Although there was a short period right after the PS3’s launch on the 17th of November when people were getting $2000-$3000 for a PS3, prices have now decreased to the point where you’re likely to only make $200-$300. Not exactly a great reward for camping out for days in front of a store.

Call of Duty 3 screenshot comparison Wii vs. Xbox 360

Yes, this is an unfair fight, but this kind of comparison is rather eye-opening. Here are screenshots from similar places in the Call of Duty 3 on both the Xbox 360 and the Wii (thanks, Gamespot). I didn’t include the PS3 since it should be about identical to the Xbox 360. The difference is startling. These aren’t the exact same places in the game, but I’ve chosen shots that seem similar to one another in terms of their content.

I’m not doing this to bash the Wii (I like a lot about it and I think the games made specifically for the system should be good) but cross-platform games like Call of Duty 3 really do seem to suffer on the Wii. (Pictures after the jump.)

Turn your Slurpee into Wii

7-11 is apparently doing a tie-in with the Wii where you can get a chance to win a Nintendo Wii when you buy a Slurpee (and they even have a flavor called Strawberrwii Banana). But the real news is their slogan. I’m a little surprised Nintendo went along with this (assuming they had any input). I do like the Slurpee shaped Wiimote, though. It’s also the first time I realized that “Slurpee” has the word “pee” in the name…

I can’t decide whether it’s cool of Nintendo to be tongue-in-cheek with their product name or just stupid.

Click the image above for the full-sized view. The original ad was in the December issue of EGM magazine.

The darker side of the PS3 launch

Kotaku has an excellent article written by a reader about the recent PS3 launch in Japan. Most of the coverage I have seen has focused on the long lines of people waiting in front of the stores but what I didn’t realize is that a large portion of the people waiting there are actually Chinese nationals who are being paid to stand in line and purchase the machines. The people who pay them are presumably going to sell the PS3s for a profit.

Similar things are going on in the US, with more people buying the systems to sell them at auction than to play them. It’s easy to blame the people doing this, but I guess in the end they are just responding to the situation that Sony has created. 400,000 units for North America? Only 80,000 units for Japan? Madness.

Foreigners And Fights, PS3 JPN Launch’s Dark Side [Kotaku.com]

Want a PS3 a few days early? Don’t have a preorder at all? No problem…

Play-Asia has just offered up the Japanese version of the Playstation 3 for preorder. The price for the 60GB model is $999 and the 20GB is $899. This is a hefty markup over the retail prices of $599 and $499, respectively, but given how hard it is to get a preorder for these things, and the fact that they will probably go for closer to $2000 on eBay just after launch, it’s actually not such a bad deal. (Yes-Asia.com is trying to sell the same thing for $1899!) You may even get it a little early, since Japan is having their PS3 release on November 11th instead of the 17th (admittedly, shipping time will probably most of that up).

The only thing you need to consider is that while the system language can be set to English and PS3 games and Blueray movies will play without problems (PS3 games are region free and Japan and the US are the same region under the Blueray specs), this console won’t be able to play normal DVDs, PS1 and PS2 games from the US.

Next-gen preorder blues (PS3 & Wii)

What is it about the launch of video game consoles the inspires such bumbling incompetence in retailers? Last year, lots of places got into trouble by preselling more Xbox 360s than they could get, but everyone assumed that the same thing wouldn’t be happening this year with the Playstation 3 and Nintendo Wii. But with less than 3 week remaining until both consoles ship, there have already been a number of problems with preorders. (More after the jump.)

Goozex adds PC games

Goozex.com (the game trading site which I wrote about a while ago) has now added PC games to its site, allowing you to trade PC games for console games and vice versa. Just in the last day or two, more than 600 PC games have been made available by users. Check it out.

Lik-Sang closes its doors

Lik-Sang.com announced today that they would be going out of businesses. Their press release about it basically blames Sony for the entire thing, since Sony recently won a court ruling againt them, that prevented them from selling imported PS3s. I can’t understand Sony’s logic behind this. The whole reason that there is a market for imported PS3s in the first place is that Sony isn’t capable of making enough to satisfy demand.

Still, I can’t help but wonder if Lik-Sang wasn’t having financial troubles anyway, and is using this as an excuse to get out of business. Regardless, this is a sad day for gamers. Places like Lik-Sang and Play-Asia are some of the few places where we can easly get Japanese games and hardware. I would hate to see more places go out of business.

2-day Threadless sale

Quick bargain: Threadless.com is having another of their $10 sales — all T-shirts are $10, which is quite a savings over their usual prices.

Trade games with Goozex

In general, I am the kind of person who likes to hang on to games. If I really liked a game, I want to keep it even if I know that I’ll probably never play it again. But there are a lot of games that I just don’t make a connection with, and sometimes I’ll pick up a game cheaply with the intention of playing it and just never get around to it. Those games I will usually try and sell.

Up until now I had been using half.com to get rid of this kind of game, but prices aren’t usually that great and they also charge a commission. Recently, though, I have been using Goozex.com. It’s kind of similar to half.com in that users send games directly to one another — Goozex works as a middleman, helping you find people who want your games. But instead of getting cash for your games, you get Goozex points which you can then use to request other games on the site. Normally I would say that getting “points” isn’t as good a deal as getting cash, but I’ve had a lot of success in trading my games so far. I’ve traded about 20 games that I wasn’t playing and got a bunch of new games that I’m excited about playing. At the moment, you can trade and receive Xbox 360, Xbox, PS2, PS1, GameCube, Dreamcast, DS, PSP and GBA games. (More after the jump.)