By Franklin Paul Fri Nov 17, 8:08 PM ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) - As a buying frenzy surrounding the U.S. launch on Friday of Sony's PlayStation 3 video game console moved out of mobbed stores and onto the Web, gamers' attention turned to Sunday's launch of Nintendo's Wii.
Hundreds were making big profits reselling newly bought PS3s on Internet auction site eBay Inc. (Nasdaq:EBAY - news). Nearly 800 units, which retail for $500 and $600, had sold online on Friday for an average price of $2,717, bringing the total sold to just over 3,600, according to eBay Marketplace Research.
Outlying bids reached $30,000.
Thousands had camped outside stores to be among the first U.S. gamers to buy the PS3 on Friday. One man was shot in a robbery attempt while waiting with 15 to 20 people outside a Connecticut Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT - news) at about 3:15 a.m. EST.
He was shot after refusing to hand over money to two armed men. He was in serious condition at a Massachusetts hospital, police said.
Unruly crowds prompted the closure of two Wal-Mart stores in Palmdale, California, earlier in the week and skirmishes broke out in front of other U.S. stores as nerves wore thin for shoppers, some of whom had camped out for several days.
With hundreds waiting outside stores in some places, the wait turned into a social event. Finger food was showered upon those outside Sony's midtown Manhattan store, as thumping music blared. Some used discarded bags of shredded paper as billowy chairs, while a lamp shade sheltered one man from the rain.
Even former Senator
John Edwards became entangled in the PS3 scramble. Wal-Mart said a staffer had asked to get a machine for Edwards, who has criticized the retailer's treatment of workers. Edwards said the staffer acted without permission and denied he wanted a PS3 from Wal-Mart.
Investors are closely watching sales of the PS3 as a key test of Sony's grip on the $30 billion gaming industry, particularly as it faces rising competition from Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq:MSFT - news) and Nintendo Co. Ltd. (7974.OS).
About 400,000 units were expected to be available in the United States on Friday alone, one week after the initial launch in Japan. Sony aims to make 1 million PS3s available in the United States by the end of the year.
The retail frenzy of this new game console cycle will be capped this weekend with the debut of Nintendo's much-anticipated Wii. Some industry watchers predict lines outside stores will be bigger than for the PS3 because the Wii is less expensive and there are more ready for launch.
PS3 KEY TO TURNAROUND
The PS3 buzz is a welcome break after a tough year for Sony, following a recall of nearly 10 million of its computer batteries, PS3 delays and a flat-screen TV price war.
Sony (6758.T)(NYSE:SNE - news) shares closed 1.3 percent higher at 4,770 yen in Tokyo on Friday.
Sony is expected to lose money at first on each PS3 sale. The unit can also be used to surf the Internet, download video and music and play movies with a Blu-ray high-definition disc drive. But high production costs have dragged Sony's game unit into a deep loss for the year through March.
Experts say the PS3 could last a decade and go a long way toward helping Sony stay atop the gaming market, while aiding efforts to make Blu-ray the next-generation DVD standard.
"The PS3 does so much that it can become the centerpiece of a home entertainment system," Kaz Hirai, chief executive of Sony Computer Entertainment America, said in an interview.
Some analysts say the PS3's high price could deter non-gaming consumers and open Sony up to stronger competition from the $400 high-end
Xbox 360 and the $250 Wii.
"They will sell out of the 400,000 (units), with the hard-core gamers," said IDC analyst Danielle Levitas of the PS3. "But with Blu-ray, they are betting their strongest business unit on a technology that it's not clear most consumers want."
Only about 500 PS3s were available for sale at the midnight Friday launch in New York, officials said, leaving hundreds out in the rain holding on to promises that more boxes would be made available when the store reopened at dawn.
In Boston, police were called in to turn away hundreds of gamers waiting at a Best Buy after it turned out the store did not have a permit to open at midnight.
Of the Connecticut shooting, Sony said in a statement it was "not reflective of what the thousands of U.S. consumers experienced."
Angel Paredes, who waited four days through rain storms in New York, was the first to buy a PS3 in the United States, and vowed he would not put it up for sale. Kamau Romero, a 24-year-old educator, who was third in line, was not so sure.
"It would take a lot to get it out of my hands, but it is possible. You never know," Romero said.
(Additional reporting by Kenneth Li and Nick Olivari in New York, Lisa Baertlein in Los Angeles, Eric Auchard in San Francisco and Svea Herbst-Bayliss in Boston)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061118/tc_nm/sony_playstation_dc
