It seems they’re not crazy at all
- Published April 30th, 2007 in /dev/random
Yesterday I noted that the prices being asked at eBay for a Nintendo Wii were somewhat higher than the retail price of $249.99.
On that very same day I decided to buy a Wii. I went to 3 different WalMarts, 2 GameStop stores and some random retail stores like Toys’r'us and such. None. Zero. Everything was completely sold out. On one of the WalMarts they said that it takes in average 1 hour to sell the Nintendo Wiis they receive. At the GameStop store, they received 4 Wiis today but there was a line when the store opened!
Now I understand why people are willing to pay a higher premium for a Wii. It’s a basic rule of Economics and it’s called the request-offer law of the market. Demand is high and availability is low, prices rise.
As a matter of fact it’s usually called supply and demand law.
You’ll probably be glad to know that here in Portugal both Wii and PS3 are available [almost] everywhere. This is a good thing, since the income-to-price ratio is way lower than in the US.
Pedro,
There are two chief reasons for Wii availability in Portugal:
1) As always, we’re always following the tail. Most of the Portuguese people still envision PS3 as the awe-inspiring platform they wish to own and they’re expecting the price to drop. Except for a few, Nintendo Wii is for kids. Their bad.
2) Portuguese can’t afford paying so much for a gaming device
Finally, thanks for the translation. I was trying to get the correct translation for “Lei da Oferta/Procura” ;-)