Kotaku has a great little story about the rapid decline of the Sony PlayStation 3 in the US market. To recap: it seems that many of the early sales were to scalpers who thought that, based on the Xbox 360 experience, they'd make a big profit reselling machines on eBay. That turned out not to be the case -- or rather, not for long.
Michael Fahey has a graph of eBay prices for the PS3, and he also contacted some of the leading suppliers to ask about PS3s being returned for refunds. He concludes:
The moral of this story? There's no such creature as a sure thing. The majority of eBay prospectors walked away from this experience with that lesson burned into the back of their brains. My suggestion for the future? If you want to gamble, go to Vegas. If you want to invest, try mutual funds. Leave the video game system buying to the gamers. We'll all be happier for it.
