Artificial Cheese

I’ve always been an avid video game player.  I try to stay on or near the cutting edge when it comes to hardware, including PCs and consoles.  I am starting to warm to purchasing one of the new consoles that were recently released.  When I was younger, the only thing standing in between myself and the latest and greatest was money.  My parents’ money to be exact.  However six years ago, I started noticing a strange trend.

I just couldn’t find what I wanted.  I would go to stores with wads of money in my hands looking for a product that was universally sold out.  After finally clearing the short hurdle of money, I had to find a way around the giant hurdle of availability.  As the decade moves on this is turning out to be less of an isolated incident and more of a trend.  Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo can’t make hardware fast enough to sate the hunger of the young gaming community.

I can understand that demand is greater than supply; its nothing new.  I can understand that the manufacturers need to start making money for themselves and those who make software for their systems, so they get the hardware out the door as fast as possible.

Now comes the part about what “I don’t understand”.  I don’t understand how the people fortunate enough to aquire one of these machines are able to turn around and sell them for thousands of dollars worth of profit.  Look up ‘PS3′ on eBay and you’ll understand what I don’t understand.  I’ve always thought that the cost of an item is determined by a simple equation that factors in demand, supply, and production costs.

So if the supply goes DOWN, and the demand remains UP, then the costs go UP.  Why are the retailers still selling these items at MSRP?  If demand is high enough to sell it for $10,000 on eBay, then why not at Best Buy?