back to article Amazon limits PS3 Slim sales

Gamers hoping to shed some excess weight should act fast, Amazon has warned. The online retailer’s PlayStation 3 Slim stocks look set to sell out quickly, it reckons. The 120GB console – launched earlier this week – will be released in North America and Europe on 1 September, but Amazon’s US arm has already advised customers …

COMMENTS

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hype

    No one's going to fall tor it. The system is ugly and still over priced. Stick with the Xbox 360 if you want better games and an even better online experience.

  2. Cliff

    Aside from size and power, why?

    Both boxes are fugly enough to want to hide, so why is there expected to be a rush?

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Amazon UK has a 'slightly' different view

    Amazon UK have gone for a limit of 5units per household :-)

    Seems reasonable

  4. E 2
    Unhappy

    n/a

    And 100% unlikely to run Linux. That nifty new XCell processor and no Linux!

  5. Giles Jones Gold badge

    Uglier PS3

    Looks less like a breadbin, more like a george foreman grill.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    oh come on.......

    this has to be a puiblicity stunt !!!!!!! There are so many ways to circumvent this restriction that it can't be anything else (oh granny look what you just bought) ......... Amazon cancel orders and accounts - yeah right and by the way - why on earth would a household need more that one PS3 slim anyway ?????

  7. Goat Jam
    FAIL

    What the?

    "‘I’ll just get a second one sent to my work address,' we hear you cry. Nope, because Amazon stressed that failure to comply with its one per household rule will result in cancellation of all outstanding orders and account closure."

    Hot on the heels of their ham fisted 1984 ebook fiasco, Amazon leaps at another opportunity to paint itself as some sort of Jack Booted Corporate Overlord.

    This has to be one of the most ridiculous PR gaffes we've seen from Amazon in weeks!

    If for some reason my frontal lobe got fried and I decided I just had to have more than one PS3 then there are many ways I could avoid the ire of Amazon. How about I just buy another one at EB? Will Amazon send out squads of crack policy compliance units to their customers homes to check that they are not in possession of unauthorised PS3 consoles?

    Honestly, what do they hope to achieve by this? <engages frontal lobe, yep still working> Oh, of course. They are trying to create the impression of a PS3 shortage in order to encourage people to rush into buying a console for fear of them "running out", and this is despite the fact that the previous PS3 has failed to set any sales records up to now.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    They must be lying

    After all the 'experts' on the Reg's articles on it decribed it as 'Fail'.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The PS3 Slim is...

    "The PS3 Slim is 33 per cent slimmer and 36 per cent lighter than its bulky predecessor"

    Yes, unfortunately on the downside it's also 38% more expensive in the UK than in the US.

    Fuck off Sony, go screw some other country other, we're not interested in your scam pretending it'll be so in demand you'll sell out just like you claimed at launch only to have no one to show up for your launch event.

    Sony doesn't get it, the price is the problem, and at £250, for a 3 year old console, it's still far too fucking expensive, especially when it's competitors come in at near £100 cheaper and have far more games, and far more support.

  10. DJV Silver badge
    Grenade

    I will do my bit...

    In that case I will do my bit and not order one in the first place. Suits me fine, I don't play games anyway (ok, so I play Spider Solitaire, big deal) and have boycotted all Sony stuff for several years now because of the way they screw with customers.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    It may be smaller

    but still no USB port on the back for PlayTV :(

  12. Si 1

    Well it worked for Nintendo

    Maybe telling everyone one that there are PS3 Slim shortages will work for Amazon as well.

  13. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Flame

    Why not take over management of Obamacare while they are it?

    So amazon is now also the policeman for Sony, taking it upon itself to piss of its customers for a company for which it does reselling? "Account closure", indeed.

    I suspect these "shortages" are a marketing gimmick anyway. Sony will be happy to shift all the boxes it can get, why should anyone care if somebody buys a cartload in the hope of reselling them? Unless Bin Laden kills key personnel of Sony, shortages won't last, the price will drop etc..

  14. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Wow!

    Another Sony Playstation release and yet ANOTHER shortage, funny how that always happens and funny that as a result the price shoots up...

    Sony Sure have some bad luck huh!

  15. Paul Schofield
    WTF?

    How will they know

    "Nope, because Amazon stressed that failure to comply with its one per household rule will result in cancellation of all outstanding orders and account closure"

    errr how will they know??? If I really wanted to buy 2 PS3's I could buy one, delivered to my home address using my amazon account fred.bloggs@myisp.com and me personal credit card, then buy another delivered to my work using a second amazon account fred.bloggs@mywork.com and my work credit card (assuming that is allowed by work of course, or maybe I own the company) How are they to know? Are they gonna penalise me for there being 2 Fred Blogg's in the world? Or do the new PS3's come with Big Brother tracking and alert the overlords if the proximity to another PS3 is too close.....

  16. Rob Beard
    Linux

    No Linux support

    I was waiting for a PS3 price cut for ages and had cash ready to burn but in the end got fed up with waiting and bought an XBOX 360 Elite instead. Then when I heard about the price cut I must admit I was kicking myself a little bit as I have been mulling over getting a Bluray player and holding off for a PS3. However I think that Sony ditching the support for 3rd party operating systems such as Linux has put me off. I can't see why they have done it, I mean it was not supported by Sony anyway but gave users the chance to run MythTV and emulators etc on the machine.

    Suffice to say I'll stick with the XBOX 360, buy a HD-DVD drive (for all those cheap HD DVD movies) and probably pick up a Bluray player around Christmas time instead. That is unless anyone I know decided to upgrade to the PS3 Slim and sells their old PS3 cheap.

    Now if Microsoft would stop being so stubborn and release a Bluray drive for the XBOX 360 then they'd get my cash (which is saying something since I'm a self confessed die hard Linux fanboy).

    Rob

  17. Sheinen
    Stop

    Pointless

    Am I the only one who thinks that Sony's constant 'we made it smaller so now it's good' marketing is completely pointless? They've done it with every console they've made and it serves to just piss off those who shelled out for the massive model and beg the question 'why didn't they just make it that size in the first place?'

    It's like Finish Washing Powder. Every few months they release a new uber ultimate turbo edition, telling everyone that the old one was actually crap so you should buy this slightly better one...

  18. Kit Temple
    Alert

    Business as Usual

    It seems Marketing 101 these days to ensure that your new console / console upgrade gets sold out shortly before launch. I think a lot of people only realise it is something interesting after they see stories that they may have trouble securing one.

    Even the worst console can make stories like this, they just need to make sure that production falls short of expected demand (not that I have anything against this launch - 1/3 less power consumption sounds good to me).

  19. bex

    in the UK

    Amazon UK state each household can only buy 5 , so it seams to me they don;t think there will be much demand over here

  20. Hedley Phillips

    Why would you need two?

    Surely a household only requires one PS3?

    If people really are trying to buy two or more it is no wonder we are in the financial situation that we find ourselves with consumer debt spiralling out of control.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Pah

    still rubbish, never gonna sell. Gimme the Xbox anytime.

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    That is one...

    .....seriously ugly piece of hardware

  23. This post has been deleted by its author

  24. seanj
    WTF?

    Arrogance?

    Do Amazon think they're the only e-tailer out there? So you can only buy one PS3 under penalty of death and account deletion? Well, boo-frikkin'-hoo. They're clearly assuming you will naturally try to buy both units from them. Never heard of eBuyer, Play? Hell, even Curry's if you really want!

    By the way, I don't have a PS3 yet, and if I do end up getting one, it'll just be the one...

  25. Monkey

    Oh yeah...

    ...the experts. So much wisdom spouted by so many.

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Heart

    £50 more than a Wii

    Why would you get anything else? It's also got the most desirable games this season by a very long margin.

  27. Anonymous Coward
    Pint

    Haters?

    Whats with all the Sony haters? I've used the Wii, the 360 and the PS3. I'll be getting a slim one. Perfect size for the bedroom. Porn in BlueRay is awesome.

    But on a serious note, unlike the 360 (of which I've now had 4 die on me), my PS3 is still going strong. Both consoles have their merits and unless your a complete cock you'd see that.

    Stop being knobs. Bring on the Slimline! Ban Amazon!

  28. Alex Rose

    @Sheinen

    "Am I the only one who thinks that Sony's constant 'we made it smaller so now it's good' marketing is completely pointless? They've done it with every console they've made and it serves to just piss off those who shelled out for the massive model and beg the question 'why didn't they just make it that size in the first place?'"

    If you really need to ask why they didn't make it smaller in the first place then you really shouldn't bother reading a technology website. I mean, why did the Wright brothers bother with their silly propeller plane, why didn't they just make a jumbo jet in the first place?*

    Oh, that's right, there are factors such as materials science, economies of scale, new technologies and learning curves (to name but a few) that come into play.

    *Yes I understand that that's an extreme exageration - it's called 'hyperbole' before you decide to try and pick me up on it.

  29. B3vil
    FAIL

    Every time I consider buying one, Sony take away the features I want

    The price, for the most part is enough to put me off.

    However, I thought the 100% in hardware backwards compatibility would be useful, and it would be worth buying for that once the price came down.

    Sony Removed it, main reason for wanting one gone, so even with the cheaper prices it wasn't worth it.

    Now I've been hanging on for the price to come down so that I could install linux and develop some software on it, and test out some of the homebrew, and Sony are killing that too, making it rather pointless for me to develop anything because in a few years people will only have the slim ones. It was the main (only?) edge this thing had over the 360.

    Looks like I won't be able to get a modern one with that feature now leaving absolutely no value in the product. At this point it would only be good value if it was cheaper than the 360, but with the current trends by the time it's cheaper than the 360 it will probably only play blu-ray movies because Sony have decided nobody needs the other features anyway.

    Fail, to say the least.

  30. antrowlings
    WTF?

    5 Units Per HouseHold In the UK

    http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sony-PlayStation-Console-120GB-Model/dp/B002L16JXS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1250856082&sr=8-1

    Amazon appear to have set the limit at 5 consoles per house in the UK

  31. MarkOne
    FAIL

    re: Every time I consider buying one, Sony take away the features I want

    It's not Sony's fault YOU have been dragging your heels.

    You have had a year to buy a 60GB with PS2 compatability.

    You had 2 and a half years to buy a PS3 with OtherOS compatability (and you can stil buy one, if you are quick).

  32. Tristan Young

    Stupid

    I could care less about a slim version of the PS3.

    But looking at the photos in this article of the new slim PS3, I am pissed off.

    Sony has yet to rectify their design problems. There are still no USB ports on the rear interface panel.

    Sony just doesn't get it. There are devices (eg: PS3IR-Pro1000) that use the USB ports, and users looking for a clean look and layout don't want USB cables hanging out the front of their equipment.

    Sony - pay attention to what we really need:

    - 1080p upsampling

    - rear USB ports

    - built-in IR receiver

    Failure to heed our needs is holding you back. My friends are holding off on buying a PS3 - dropping it $100 doesn't circumvent their requirements. Quit making the PS3 an OK system, and make it a damn great system.

  33. Monkey

    I take back my original comment...

    ... so little wisdom spouted by so many.

    Think I'll stick with that one instead.

  34. PaulM 1
    Linux

    Will firmware upgrades remove dual boot from fat PS3s?

    The best PS3 for Linux has always been the original 60 Gb model that came with PS2 compatibility. The reason is that the original model had 4 USB ports and also featured a Memory Stick card slot. In later 40 Gb and 80 Gb PS3s the number of USB ports was reduced to 2 and the Memory Stick card slot was lost.

    I have noticed that many people are now selling second hand original model 60 Gb PS3s for about £220 in the UK, which is great news for Linux fans.

    However, there is still one very important question that Sony must answer. That question is "If you upgrade the firmware in a fat PS3 to the latest version, will the fat PS3 also loose the ability to boot an alternate OS? If Sony plan to continue to support Linux on fat PS3s then enough fat PS3s will always be available on the second hand market to satisfy the needs of Linux users.

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