Last year’s X-Box 360 shortage caused a ridiculous amount of overpriced systems selling on ebay within the first week of the system’s launch. After about a week the auction closing prices settled down to about 10% over the sticker price. So what does the world learn from this? Absolutely nothing apparently.

Check out these completed auctions for a $1,995,00 Wii and even worse a $14,900.00 PS3. These aren’t even auctions for systems now. They’re pre-orders to be shipped this weekend when the systems are launched. Sure they include a few launch titles but those are terribly unlikely to sell out in the first couple of days. One only needs to do a quick ebay search for Wii or PS3 to see the ongoing auctions and ebay users can click on the “completed items” box on the left to see what these auctions finished at.

Sure the PS3 will have less systems at launch than the X-Box 360 but with it’s heafty price tag it will also sell that many less systems. Is making sure you get a system on launch day really more important than say… a car? Paying more than a couple of dollars over sticker price for the Wii is terribly ignorant seeing as the sytem is likely to be able to fill demand into December. You can pay 2000$ on ebay or you know… you can pay 250$ in a store next week. I personally walked into a Toys ‘R Us on a random Sunday afternoon in Septemeber and pre-ordered my Wii which I’m told is almost certain to be in 9am launch day according to the expected number of systems they’ll be getting. That’s a net savings of $1750 US!

Never underestimate the power of human stupidity. Keep checking ebay to see just how much higher these people are willing to pay for these systems before the price drops back to MSRP.

Ever since Lucasfilm decided to post the The Phantom Menace trailer online 8 years ago, movie trailers have been a staple of the web surfers diet. With that in mind, we launch a regular columm showcasing movie trailers. We may not see all these movies, we probably won’t even like most we see, but trailers are a nice way to kill two and a half minutes.

First up, Fanboys. This also harkens back to the Episode One days, with a tale loosely based on the true geek plot to steal a print of the film.

Balls Of Fury stars Christopher Walken as a Ping Pong champion and criminal king pin.

The Simpsons Movie. The series itself has been getting progressively harder to watch over the years, and this movie looks no better. Perhaps if they’d brought in the genius writing of season 4, we might have something. Alas, Late Night with Conan O’Brien is more like how the Simpsons used to be than how they are today.

… and just for fun, Office Space: Recut

Via Engadget, heres a look at the controller for an upcoming game for Nintendo Wii called “Streetcar GO!” which of course puts you in the shoes of a shinkansen driver.

The above photo is of course a mock-up, but that doesn’t make the premise any less ridiculous. I thought the proprietary controllers for games like Steel Battalion and DK Bongos were whacked!

Those who wish to virtually manipulate a bullet train can do so in February. Read all about it in broken english.

An absolutely amazing rough cut of the Spider-Man 3 trailer has leaked to the web. Many shots are identical to the released one, and theres quite a bit of rough CG and even story boards and green screen in place of final footage.

But the end… oh, the end is where the money is. I guess Sony didn’t want to play their hand just yet, so this trailer is going offline as fast as it went on, but here it is until then:

[Read the rest of this entry…]

Back in September, I posted this video about a secret song hidden in many Nintendo games. The reception was very positive, and now I return to you with two new findings: one from Pikmin 2, and one from Virtual Boy Warioland. I also endeavor to inform on more games where you might want to look.

Credit goes to Nick Barba for finding the song in Virtual Boy Warioland, and to George Morgan for Pikmin 2.

An indepth analysis of Microsoft and Epic’s 2006 blockbuster!

Fox “News” reports on the many dangers of Internet and somehow associates them with the PSP.

Parents are advised that buying their children a PSP will surely cause them to become sexual deviants, nazis and the target of sexual predators. If only the PSP had good games on it these kids wouldn’t have to find alternative uses for the unit. Get your children a DS to keep them out of harm’s way!

Thanks to Shiv’kala for the heads up.

This is it. Click the image above for the long awaited first trailer for Spider-Man 3.
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