Reader Shane Martin postulates that Sony may be running a bit shy of demand with the new slim-line Playstation 2. If you want to get one for Christmas, better snap them up as you see them.
I m not sure if this has been brought up yet but it appears that there is a shortage of the new sized Sony PS2 systems. Every retailer in the Central Ohio area (Columbus, Dayton, Newark, etc) is completely sold out as of Monday that I can tell and no one knew when new shipments would arrive. During my prying I discovered that Best Buy has NONE at the warehouse for this region and that they are on backorder with no date as to when they might receive new stock from Sony. Circuit City seems to be in a similar position if I read the screen right that the sales guy there had up and a manager at Media Play said that they received notice that they would be getting no more PS2s before X-Mas (of course I m sure this is because Best Buy owns the Musicland Group, which Media Play is a part of, and doesn t want to sap away from its own stores). GameStop and EBGames Stores earlier in the day said they were expecting more in as they get daily shipments but later in the day after checking back with the stores they said they had no idea when they would get any IF they even did. The explanation I was given by everyone was that Sony is having trouble producing the new systems so output is low (and of course demand is high) so this might be the Granny Punching/Mom Biting item of the year if things keep up.
That being said, maybe it’s just an Ohio thing. Anyone else had problems getting their hands on a new PS2?
Will Brown writes:
In the UK there seem to be very very limited supplies, most stores are constantly sold out, Amazon.co.uk report they won’t have more stock for two or three months. Went to a number of stores in London (Virgin, HMV, Sony Centre, various electronics stores) last week, most saying they would be getting stock during December, but I’d imagine they have backlogs of preorders. If you don’t have one now, you won’t get one for Christmas, in this country, at least.
Update: Sony has confirmed shortages.
Sony coughs to PS2 shortage [TheRegister]
