PS3 launches US assault

November 17th, 2006, 16:57 Posted By: wraggster

PlayStation 3 goes on sale this morning in the US and lines of gamers are already queuing up to get their hands on one. Or maybe more if they plan on selling them on for a profit.

Sony aims to ship around 400k units into America. though some analysts believe only 150,000 to 200,000 units may reach the US in time for today's launch.

People queuing up over night for the launch braved armed robbers in Springfield. Three gamers were targeted at a store and police managed to recover their wallets just in time for them to hand over a month's wages to Sony.

Somewhere in the region of 2,200 systems have already appeared on eBay, with the highest one selling for a ridiculous $9,100 (with free shipping).

And the cost of PS3 is also hitting Sony in the financials. A report on Bloomberg reports Sony will lose at least $307 on each unit of PlayStation 3 sold. The size of this loss is greater than Microsoft's loss around $153 per 360 sold when it went on sale last December. iSuppli analyst Andrew Rassweiler said, "The ratio of cost to retail price is much greater here than it was on the Xbox 360." But Sony sees PS3 having a ten-year product life cycle, so there's plenty of time to claw back the lost cash.

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