By the time November and December roll around, finding a cheap PS3 is nearly impossible. Demand for them goes crazy around the holidays, so if you haven’t found one in October, they’re scarce. In this post I want to share some tips that will help you out if you’ve managed to wait until the last minute.
The most consistent place to get a PS3 at a good price is Amazon. You don’t really see major instant savings because they are priced just lower than the retail price, but the savings comes in other forms. Amazon ships Playstations for free around the US, so you don’t have to worry about paying for that. The big savings that you might not have thought about is in sales tax. Most states don’t have to pay tax on Amazon, and when you add up the console, a game, and a second controller, you’re looking at about $450. Paying 8% tax on $450 locally would cost you about $36! That savings only grows as you buy more stuff.
| PS3′s are always good on price at Amazon.com Sony Playstation 3 160GB $299.99 |
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A place that you can find low rates, but risk buying a lemon, is Craigslist. I’ve sold my old consoles there, and they were in great shape, but that doesn’t mean that everyone else is going to do that. If you choose this route, bring someone with you that is familiar with the console to help you make sure that it’s in good working order and tests it out. Not doing this is going to lead to major problems later on down the road.
Scarcity is only going to be compounded this year with the release of Playstation Move. This is the highly anticipated motion capture add on that comes out just before the holidays. The awesome list of Move games is growing quickly, which could make the Playstation hard to find well beyond the end of the year!
So put simply, get your PS3 as quickly as possible. You’ll be able to find a cheap one as the holidays get closer, but it will be much tougher to do.
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