Sony's PlayStation 3 (PS3) gaming console is an even rarer prize to score over the holidays. PS3, which went on sale Friday in the United States, is one of the most widely awaited products of 2006.
Good luck finding one.
What makes PS3 a hotter commodity than Nintendo's Wii video game machine, set to debut two days later, is limited supply. Sony (
SNE) has set aside just 400,000 PS3 units for sale in the United States at launch and 2 million units for sale worldwide.
Best Buy (
BBY), Circuit City (
CC), Wal-Mart (
WMT) and Target (
TGT) expect to be out of stock in a matter of hours after both systems hit stores. Even so, these merchants say they hope to receive more units of T.M.X., PS3 and Wii on a weekly basis throughout the holidays.
But with demand outstripping holiday supply, smart consumers are realizing that this year they probably won't get what they really want from Santa.
According to results from a new Deloitte holiday survey released Thursday, one in four consumers, don't think they'll get their top choices, namely T.M.X. Elmo, PS3 and Microsoft's XBox. The survey polled 13,399 adults from Sept. 25 to Oct. 11.
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