Stores report plenty of Sony's next-gen console in stock.

Last year, it took several months for the Xbox 360 to be readily available in retail stores. Chains such as Gamestop/ EB Games were still filling preorders well into 2006 (the system launched 11/21/2005), and it wasn’t until around March or April that someone could easily walk into a store and walk out with Microsoft’s next-generation console. Now Nintendo seems to be walking that path, with demand for the Wii still far exceeding the available stock. While this time the preorders were filled right away, people are still hunting and waiting in long lines and hoping to get lucky in acquiring the system.

It now appears, though, that Sony is having no such issues. A recent check with my local game store found that they had plenty of Playstation 3’s in stock, and that they weren’t exactly moving. My first thought was that Sony had caught up with production and was sending out greater numbers, but the store informed me that they were still getting the same shipments they’ve been getting all along (roughly 2 systems a week), but that with nobody coming in to purchase the console the stock is just building up.

The employees of that store and others report that while they’re still fielding a high number of Wii-related calls during each day, they can go an entire day without any inquiries at all about the PS3. One store showed me a scratch pad they kept by the phone one day, making marks for each Wii call and PS3 call they received. At the end of that day the Wii had gotten 75, while the PS3 came in at 2.