So, now that all the launch nonsense is over it's time to look at how the companies managed their launches. I think Nintendo did the best job they could, so I'm not going to rag on them. Sony and Microsoft are another story.
Oh Sony, how your launch failed. Sony was up against two big barriers with this launch, a competing product that was generating huge buzz (Wii) and a very high price level for the PS3. So I feel it was a little short sighted to implement the same strategy they used for the PS2. They intentionally held back units on launch day so they could keep regular shipments going to retailers until Christmas.
This creates the illusion that the PS3 is hard to get and keeps demand up. How do I know this is what happened? Look at the 360 launch back in 2005. Microsoft insisted on launching in all 3 regions at the same time. This lead to real shortages of product. These shortages keep a solid grey market alive until the holidays were over. As we've all seen from the charts, the PS3 grey market collapsed, hard.
Had the Wii popularity overshadowed the PS3 the grey market would have maintained itself because there would still be a shortage at retail. But there wasn't. Sony "somehow" managed to ship 2 million units world wide by the end of the year despite cutting the launch allotments shortly before the PS3's release.
Huh... I thought this would be longer... oh well, I made my point.
