I was just at GameStop and Target yesterday, so I can add one other guy's experience. The west side Madison GameStop has a little hand-printing sign on the door saying 'PS3 in Stock!'. When I asked them about it, they seemed really excited and said they have 6 units in the store, and plenty of accessories available. At Target, there were at least four units available; they were visible behind glass on the PS3 display. Neither Target nor Gamestop had any Wiis available.

I was also in an EB in Atlanta yesterday. They had no Wiis in stock, but quite a few PS3s. I bought their last Wii classic controller, which has (personally) been tough to find. To answer the question, though: I won't be buying a PS3 for a while. I don't even have an X360 yet, and I plan to pick that up when Mass Effect releases.

Here's my story. I live in basically the biggest city. New York... I work somewhere between 42nd street/Times square and 34th Street. I went to the Gamestop right in tourist central.. 34th street. Not just tourist central mind you but SHOPPING tourist central. If you're on 34th street it's almost a 100% chance that your about to, or have spent some money.
I asked the clerk, at the complete packed with shoppers, gamestop, if they had any PS3s and he said yup.. I then asked are the selling... he said nope, "that's cause the system sucks" That's a word for word quote. I then asked a cashier and he said they aren't seeling well at all.. Any wiis I said? "nope, they sell out immediately". How's the 360 doing?.. to which he replied "they sell the most... they never sell out though because we're always getting big shipments, but they are definately moving sales"

Now I'm not a fanboy of any company because I don't get a check everytime they make a sale. And I understand that I'm a gamer, and more systems, means more games for me. So it's a win for me. I don't want any system to fail, just thought I'd report what I was seeing..

PS. Also the same story at all the best buys I went to.

I saw three lonely PS3s sitting at the bottom shelf of my local Target last week, while nary a Wii was to be seen.

We want Wii.

For about a month now, the 1UP.com message boards have been positively lit up with scores of reports regarding exactly the same experience. Every now and then someone mentions a store that's also sold out of PS3s (a handful of them) or mentions that he's saving up to buy a PS3... but by and large, it has become a topic for console fanboy rampages and trolling.

Even the editors who are somewhat partial to the PS3 recognize that, at $600, it has no potential to be an impulse purchase. If I were Sony, I'd be pretty upset about the notebook-paper signs -- it exacerbates the perception of the company's desperation.

Neither the PS3 nor the Wii is a perfect console system at the moment; it would be unrealistic to expect that right out of the gate. But the $350 difference in price has clearly shown itself to be a thorn in Sony's side.

I'm in Indiana and I could buy a ps3 pretty much any time I want at this point; they're always in stock somewhere (Target, Walmart, etc.). I got my Wii at Target by getting lucky and walking in right when they restocked their shelf. They're still very hard to come by around here, as are Wii accessories like the remote and whatnot.

Word for word quote from an email I received from GameStop today:

"All GameStop Stores Have PS3's
Also Available Online
Contact your local GameStop before heading down to ensure availability."

However, despite my fanboyish love of the Wii, I'm starting to wonder just how many are being made available when a shipment comes in. Seems that shipments are barely a trickle.

It's been in stock all over the place around here, and in most cities across the usa, most retailers are reporting a surplus of units and not being able to sell them. Between ebay hoarders returning their systems the day after christmas because they could not flip them for profit and sony shipping units to stores, most stores have been left with more units than they need and can sell. As for the question, No I would not buy one, and I will never buy one, unless it gets really cheap at some point, like 100$.

I've been stumbling on both PS3 models for the last two weeks or so pretty much everywhere I go, and it doesn't even cross my mind to impulse buy 'em. $600 + tax (which is the price of a brand new game) for a console? Uhh...

I would like to pick one up in the future though. There's some games I'm casually interested in and I'd love to play around with SDLMAME on it. Lets just hope they fix their scaler via a firmware update at some point so that PS2 and PS1 games don't look quite so bad :(

My local Target had about a dozen PS3s for the last week. They were out yesterday when I checked again. I haven't seen any PS3s at Best Buy or EB/GameStop. I haven't seen a single available Wii anywhere since launch day, and I've only seen extra remotes on sale twice. I've never seen a console so scarce.

Scratch that.. I just went by Target today and there were not 3, but eight PS3s sitting there, lonely, while the Wii isle was full of people -- despite Target having no Wii consoles for sale.

PS3s had been seen in stores near me several times BEFORE Christmas. They are pretty much commonplace now.

I've still never seen a Wii.

If Sony had already released the PS3 in Europe (at the same price point as in the US) I would still not get one, simply because of the price and the amount of games I'm interested in on this system. The Xbox360 has much more to offer at least for me right now with Lost Planet holding the head of my current wishlist.

So far the only 2 games I'd consider are MotorStorm (again, if it had been released already) and Resistance. But even MotorStorm doesn't look all that promising to me anymore with it's limited amount of modes.

So for now I see no real reason to spend that much money on the PS3.

Meanwhile here in Taiwan, things are pretty much the same. The PS3 is bombing hard here. There are stores that literally have pyramids of a good dozen PS3s, while the Wii is still being consistently sold, despite being by and large kept out the back. Wii accessories even keep selling out, and go for insane prices on Yahoo Auctions. Even though the Wii hasn't even been officially released in Taiwan (it's all imported Japanese consoles right now), it's beating the shit out of the PS3. The best signal of this: I've seen one Wii game going second-hand, and that was a) formerly mine, and b) Wii Play, which is utterly worthless. Meanwhile, by the end of the launch weekend of the PS3 I'd already seen copies of Gundam going second-hand, and now there're second-hand PS3 games all over the place.

I personally won't buy a PS3 until it's at least half the price, or until there are some real must-have games. I don't think the PS3's failed yet, but the next six months are going to be very interesting for both Sony and Nintendo.