Two weeks ago, freshmen Santiago Bortman, Chris DeBord, Brandon Ray and a few of their friends hung out in a Beltsville Circuit City parking lot for 26 hours, skipping classes and waiting. The object of their desire: a new Sony Playstation 3.
But unlike the patient parents waiting alongside them in line, the friends had no intention of ever playing the $600 system.
“It’s a quick $1,500 if it works out,” DeBord says of the group’s plan to buy the PS3 and sell it on eBay. And they were not the only students planning to make money by selling this Christmas season’s hottest item – the crowd was mainly college kids trying to make a quick buck or parents waiting to buy the system for their children.
Since its debut Nov. 17, Sony’s Playstation 3 has drawn long lines and even violence – some people were robbed, stabbed and even shot while waiting to buy the consoles these past few weeks. But among university students, the general consensus is to buy and sell the $600 PS3 and buy and keep the Nintendo Wii, which launched Nov. 19 for $249.
According to Ray, PS3s have been selling on eBay for anywhere between $1,500 to $2,500. But the high cost of the PS3 – partly due to its Blu-Ray feature, which allows owners to play higher-quality Blu-Ray DVDs on the console – might be pricing Sony’s system out of the market for a lot of college students, says Mike Musgrove, who writes about video games for The Washington Post.
Senior biological resources major Jeffrey Hsieh agrees, saying he thinks the price of the PS3 is “absurd” and “will alienate the younger generation and those who are poorer.” Hsieh originally planned on buying a PS3 and re-selling it, but after waiting in long lines and not obtaining one, he simply bought what he really wanted: the Wii.
Hsieh is the creator of the “Nintendo Wii” Facebook group for Maryland and says his impressions of the gaming system are perfect so far.
“It’s awesome. Zelda has been a 10 out of 10 as expected,” Hsieh explains.
Chris Williamson, a senior computer science major, is also excited about the Wii and says he plans on buying one soon. A self-described “hardcore gamer,” Williamson plays 25 to 30 hours of video games a week – “almost a full-time job,” he jokes.
And even PS3 all-night campers Bortman, DeBord and Ray admit they are more excited about playing the Wii than the PS3.
Along with its more affordable price, the Wii is just cooler than the PS3, students say. With its motion-sensing remote controller, the console engages players in a way no other system has before – and piques the interest of non-gamers as well, Hsieh says.
“I’ve noticed a lot of people who don’t normally play games are talking about [the Wii], if not trying it out,” he says. “No one is going to play Zelda the old way again.”
Currently, there are very few games out for either system. The most popular game for the Wii is The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, which has drawn comparisons to the Nintendo 64’s The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, named the second-best game of all time by the editors of popular video gaming website IGN. For the PS3, the most critically praised game is Resistance: Fall of Man.
But yet another feature of the Wii drawing praise from critics is the choice owners have to purchase games for older systems and play them on the Wii’s Virtual Console. For a price ranging from roughly $5 to $10, people can buy old games for systems such as the NES, Super NES, Nintendo 64 or Sega Genesis and then play them on the Wii.
“The ability to play retro games will definitely make the Wii more appealing to a lot of people of all ages who still like the old games,” Musgrove says.
Contact reporter Kevin
Robillard at diversions@dbk.umd.edu.
