CE-Oh no he didn't! Part XXIV - Jack Tretton wants to give you $1,200
By Paul Miller 
posted February 9th 2007 2:46PM
posted February 9th 2007 2:46PM
Electronic Gaming Monthly, in an interview with Sony's Jack Tretton in early January, mentioned the recent availability of his company's console: "...it seemed like about 50 percent of the people in line were there to make a quick buck on eBay. And now we're seeing a lot more units on store shelves." Jack seemed a tad surprised by this, but he put his money where his mouth is: "If you can find a PS3 anywhere in North America that's been on shelves for more than five minutes, I'll give you 1,200 bucks for it. I can get any retail buyer on the phone with you and get them to verify that there's not a single retail location in America where there's a PlayStation 3 on the shelf for sale. They've all been sold in a matter of minutes." After EGM let Tretton know they had indeed phoned 18 stores and found half of them had PS3s in stock, some stores with as many as 20 consoles, Jack held firm "if only nine of the 18 stores you contacted had supplies, that seems to be a clear indication that sales continue to be outstanding." So there you have it, Jack's not backing down. We're guessing our check is already in the mail.[Thanks, Corey B]
Shut the fuck up please.
What are you talking about? Nintendo is pumping out more Wii's per week than Sony is. And if you look at sales to date, the Wii has almost out-sold Sony at a 3:1 ratio (4.5M vs 1.71M to be near exact, source from vgcharts). and yet the wii is still out of stock. about 2 weeks ago, people still had to wait in line at 3am in order to get a wii from target if they are lucky. i can only assume this weekend will be the same (from silicon valley)
one word, Idiot.
I just called around to all the places nearby that I imagined had a PS3 but only one any in stock. I've heard about them just sitting around but I can't seem to find any now. Weird.
I live in Calgary Alberta. I was looking for a Wii at Walmart and they had 3 Playstation 3's sitting in the cabinet. I could get rich with his statement.
Every single electronics store in Billings, MT has at least 5. Costco had a full pallet bundled with Genji 2.
Let's try that again...
Only this time look at this before you read the article.
http://smrekart.com/jacktretton.jpg
How's that for a reality distortion field? I kinda believe him now!
I called 6 stores locally (2 gamestop, best buy, walmart, circuit city, and target) of the 6, 4 had "plenty in stock". The only stores that didn't were gamestop and to quote the guy I talked to on the phone (Richie!) "we're getting 2-3 in at a time, usually they last 3-4 days."
When I asked about the Wii, 2 stores said local policy was to not discuss when they were available. 2 told me what day they would be available, and 2 had no clue when it would be available. One of the two (best buy) who told me the day they would be in said that if I wanted one I should be there on the day they get them before 7am. lol.
Pity I don't believe Jack would hold up his end of that deal... I'd buy up everyone of those ps3's and ship them to him :P
Speaking of non-paying guys, what happened to Engadget's PS3 auction which moved to this website?
Who is the new winner of that PS3, and did he pay?
Did Engadget pay the revenue to Save Darfur?
so the Wal-Mart store in Beatrice Nebraska that's had them on the shelf for about a week, does that count????? Been there every day that I've gone in there, and the same ones too.
I don't know if someone has already said this...
METREON, SAN FRANCISCO! I was in that store for 20mins, not one PS3, one of many that is, was sold.
I want $1200x4 = $4800, pay up!
Dear Jack,
The recently opened Wal-Mart a few minutes from my office has had three PS3 units taking up space for over a week. In lieu of a check to me, please send the $1,200 to the American Heart Association in support of their initiatives.
Warm regards,
David
Too bad he's probably full of it, the Best buy here in Riverside can't even move PS3's.
By "PS3", he meant to say Wii.
:( Hopefully I'll get one on Sunday.
Good. I'll take my $1,200 and buy 4 Wii's.
wow... really? they are always at work for weeks at a time. nobody cares.. wheres my money?
Funny, we bash sony for making exaggerated claims and we turn around and make even bigger ones. Truth is, Sony is doing just fine. I spent the whole of thursday and friday looking for a ps3 here in central maryland, couldn't find one. Funny thing is, in my search I actually saw nintendo's wiis. I bought a wii after I couldnt get the ps3. Now an exaggerated statement from me would be, "I found a wii easily so it must not be doing well". Get it? I hope you do because all these P*** envy is getting old, and makes me thing wii owners (of which I am the newest member, thank you very much) are not very bright.
That's odd.
The majority of responders disagree with you.
"That's odd.
The majority of responders disagree with you."
Why, Because I am not speaking fanboy speak? OK I will tell you what you want to hear; Sony sucks, there are hundreds of ps3 consoles in every store all over the country, nobody is buying them. The wii and 360 cannot be found any where, they are mailed directly to the homes of select buyers so nobody can find them in stores, they are that hot!
Is it still all of North America, or just USA now? If it still includes Canada, I can get in on that... :P
Don't talk down to me.
I'm not a fanboy. I don't even own a console. I play first-person shooters and real-time strategy games, platforms which are best suited to the PC.
This is a typical Sony move. They said the same or very similar shit when MiniDisc and Beta tanked hard. Sony was just lucky to have the expertise of Philips to bail their ass out with the CD or else that would have likely tanked as well. Look at the DVD. Same shit there. In fact, about the only thing Sony has ever done that has truly impressed me was Trinitron and maybe the original Walkman.
Now it's the same thing with Blu-ray. Sony is trying so hard to convince consumers they need it (but ya gotta love Microsoft's move - HD-DVD for your PC and/or 360 for 200 bucks). But guess what? With the advent of the internet and other resources, we can do our own research and conclude that we don't need it and in turn shouldn't have to pay a premium on a console saddled with that technology. And hell, a year from now we'll see decks that read DVD, HD-DVD, and Blu-ray for not much over two bills, three at the most.
Just look at the core competencies of each firm and their hardware and software.
Nintendo: innovative design, classic legacy titles, focus on fun & gameplay rather than balls-out technology
Microsoft: market placement, continual support and updates, fostering community needs, throwing capital at exclusive titles and developers, leveraging their PC and OS programming expertise
Sony: (admittedly) sexy aesthetics, cutting-edge technologies, introduction of proprietary technology, "innovative" marketing
That's what each firm does best. It has been their mantras since their debuts in gaming. Not many people will dispute that.
The reason I have a problem with the PS3 is because so far, it has brought nothing new to the table except "high-end" features. I'm talking HDMI, Blu-ray, and 1080p (when they finally got it to work). There's no Xbox Live equivalent, no Wiimote equivalent. Just high-end specs saddled with a high-end price that has little to do with actually enjoying gaming.
I see the same thing with every id PC game ever made. id doesn't make first-person shooters. id develops a game engine then throws in the other parts of a game such as, you know, a barely-adequate story (and in some cases the exact same story; see Doom 3) and bland gameplay, and expects the public to go ga-ga.
And of course id grows fat off the royalties it collects every time it licenses one of its engines to a firm that thinks it needs a pretty face to make a good game.
Look at Valve. When everyone was licensing the Quake II engine, Valve took the original Quake engine, broke it down and rebuilt it almost entirely, and built a game with admittedly great graphics but also with elements that are far more important to a great FPS such as great sound effects, (at the time) excellent AI, truly engaging NPCs, diverse locales, and (finally) a truly amazing story that literally took the industry by surprise.
And what does Valve do, to this day? Offer continued support for its masterwork. The game is a little over 8 years old and it is still unmatched in story and level of support. Quake III? (mostly) Dead and gone. Quake 4? On the way.
I think you can draw the corollaries here. Valve is Nintendo and Microsoft, producing ground-breaking games and offering great, continued support that truly adds depth and longevity to the titles, respectively. Sony is id. Both produce products that on the outside look really pretty and on paper really shine. But consumers are getting bored of having to pay for what is essentially a one-trick pony.
In short, don't insult my intelligence and acknowledge that Sony relies on lying to consumers and convincing them that they really do need the best graphics and highest-capacity media (when most games can't adequately fill up a DVD-9 anyway) to deliver the best gaming experience possible despite a total dearth of innovative games and almost no perpetual support for released titles.
my email is mjw260@comcast.net. I know of a certian Circuit City that has a crapload of them!
Wow... so if a PS3 has been sitting on a shelf for over 30 days...
- thats $1,200 per 5 mins which works out to be $240 per minute
- so in an hour it would be $240 x 60 = $14,400 per hour.
- and in a day, it would be $14,400 x 24 = $345,600 per day
- so technically in 30 days I would be a $10,350,000 man....
Life just gets easier... now where's his frickin number??!?
In Watertown upstate New York, there are PS3s like there is toilet paper, in Best Buy there are over 6 stacks of at least 30 units all over the store 60gig PS3s and thats not the only store up there that has them they're everywhere over there. Wii on the othere hand they are impossible to find there no worry just go Downtown Manhattan if your in NY and you can find them in every other store. (^-^)b.
yep. same here in Virginia.. my wife manages the electronics dept in a Wal-Mart and shes had 18 PS3's
sitting there for over 2 weeks now... and the Wii constantly sells out as fast as its restocked along with all of its WiiMotes.
You think if enough of us emailed Sony claiming the $1200 bounty, we could get this asshole and most of the PR department fired?
I surely do hope Sony flaunts their ignorance again during the European Launch.
I bought my Wii near to Christmas for £350 (the console package alone), the only time I've seen one Wii in stock was on the day the stores recieved a new shipment, even then it was only one console.
Considering the views on the PS3 around London, I do reckon they're going to have a bit of a landslide in sales for quite some time.
Didn't he say that over a month ago when there weren't any available?
Bakersfield, CA - Toys r us couple weeks ago had a PS3 for about 4 or so days on shelf lonely and waiting for a buyer...
Except it was obviously a mere puff.