Pre-orders halted for Wii and PS3
By Staff -- Playthings, 10/17/2006 11:28:00 AM
GRAPEVINE, Texas— GameStop has ended all pre-orders for the Nintendo Wii and Sony PlayStation 3 systems, due to overwhelming consumer demand.
Last week, the video game and entertainment software retailer ended all pre-orders for the PS3 when the retailer saw pre-sale demand would far outstrip the limited amount of systems allocated per store. For retailers like GameStop and EB Games, most will only be provided with four to 16 consoles per store for the initial launch—a far cry from the hundreds of pre-orders taken in most game shops.
This week, GameStop put a stop to pre-orders for the Nintendo Wii system, the next-gen console scheduled to launch just two days after PS3. The pre-order campaign started on October 13 and ended the same day.
As part of GameStop's pre-order deal, customers had to pay $100 and some form of trade-in to reserve one of the new game systems.
Sony has committed to having 2 million units of the PS3 available at launch on November 17 with an additional 2 million by the end of the year; Nintendo expects to have 4 million units available by the end of year.
Pre-order plans for Toys "R" Us, which listed Wii on its 2006 holiday "hot list," Target and Wal-Mart have yet to be announced.
