PlayStation 3 release teaches patience, economics

Nov. 18, 2006
By JOSEPH M. DELEON News-Post Staff
jdeleon@fredericknewspost.com

   FREDERICK — Holly Danner spent two nights waiting in a parking lot with her brother and more than 30 people at Best Buy this week to buy the hottest video game system of the year — Sony's PlayStation 3.
     She endured wind, rain and hecklers. The worst came Wednesday night when three young men in a silver Volkswagen Jetta pitched nearly a dozen chocolate milk-filled balloons at about 20 tents lining the sidewalk.
     Ms. Danner hopes the time she spent cold and wet in a plastic poncho will help pay for college.
     Before Christmas comes around, she expects to have five PS3 consoles to sell on eBay — two from Best Buy, two from Toys R Us and one from GameStop.
     “At this point, tuition and housing are a top priority,” Ms. Danner said. “The more money I can get from these, the fewer student loans I'll have to take out.”
     If the PS3 continues to sell for $3,000 on eBay, the 20-yearold economics junior at Johns Hopkins University could make more than $12,000, split with her brother Wade Danner, a software engineer from New Market. The PS3 retails for about $600.
     “I remember when the Xbox 360 came out and I saw people camped out, I thought they were morons, and now here I am,” Ms. Danner said Thursday afternoon. “It's such an awesome system. It's so top-of-the-line you want to keep it, but it's all supply and demand — you can't help but want to sell it.”
     The PS3 craze gripped dozens of residents across Frederick County this week, as it did thousands across the country.
     Only 400,000 of the third-generation video game machines went on sale Friday in the United States. About 600,000 more are expected in stores before the end of the year.
     PS3s with a 20-gigabyte hard drive sold for $499, while ones with 60-gigabyte drives went for $599.
The console craze led to shoving matches in San Francisco; a man was shot in Putnam, Conn. At Best Buy in Frederick, things were different. Gamers shared tents, food and cell phones.
Jason “Jazz” Foster, 22, brought a TV and PlayStation 2 in the back of his yellow jeep, along with an 8-foot metal pipe to grind on with his skateboard.
“This whole week has been ridiculously fun,” he said after standing in line since Tuesday afternoon. “It's as much fun as you can have in a parking lot.”
     At 6 a.m., people in the line broke down their tents and started to gather at the entrance. Best Buy was set to open exclusively for the gamers at 8 a.m.
     When Best Buy employees passed out 34 numbered tickets, one for each console available, two people at the end of the line lost their chance to buy one.
     Rather than wait, Norm Winkler, 46, of Sykesville bribed the first person in line with $1,200.
     “You can give all the economic justification you want, but when you have a product with such a high level of demand, there's a lot of intrinsic value in getting it first,” he said Friday morning. “It was worth it to me not to have to wait four or five days in line.”
     Jason Poole, 22, sold his spot rather than wait to sell his PS3 online. He plans to deposit the money in his savings account.
     “It's been the best week of my life — not a bad week's worth of pay to camp out and have fun,” he said. “When you're out here for a week, you start to lose faith, but when he shook my hand and those 20s started flopping into my hand, it was just insane.”