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Gene Kennedy Reporting The Playstation craze hits the nation, including Salt Lake City.
Some avid gamers waited in lines for hours, others camped out for days, to get Sony's latest video game console.
About 25 to 30 people were waiting outside the Best Buy in Salt Lake to buy the Playstation 3 this morning. They were on a list to buy, because of the limited supplies.
James Hall / P-S-3 Fan: "We got here Wednesday morning."
James and Matt Hall stayed warm in their tent. Others had to curl up tightly.
26 are available. And they're guaranteed one as long as they're here.
In some parts of the country, people have been assaulted waiting outside stores. One man was shot in front of a Walmart in Conneticut. Two armed men tried to rob him. He wouldn't give them his money.
When the doors opened at the Besy Buy in Salt Lake, everyone was on their best behavior. Strikingly different from a Best Buy in Fresno, California. At that store, an employee wanted customers to line up. Instead, chaos broke out when the doors opened.
Word is, there were some problems here in Utah...at a store in Riverton.
James Hall / P-S-3 Fan: "Apparently they had to call the police and one or two people got maced yesterday in Riverton. They wouldn't let 'em line up until 24 hours before-hand."
Nothing like that this morning. James and Matt Hall got their new Playstation. They forked out $1,100 for the system plus games. But they will never open the box.
James Hall / P-S-3 Fan: "I'm putting it on eBay, I don't have that kind of money."
Matt Hall / P-S 3 Fan: "We're just doing it for the money."
James Hall / P-S-3 Fan: "We're like half the people out there, we're trying to make some quick Christmas cash."
Matt Hall / P-S 3 Fan: "The wisdom of any decision is determined by its' outcome.. So my brother says."
One Wal-Mart store in downtown Salt Lake City opened at midnight. People who had been waiting since Tuesday finally got their Playstation 3 then.
Many Circuit City stores handed out vouchers this morning. Customers there needed a ticket to buy a Playstation 3. Those went on sale at 8:00 this morning.
Our producers called around town to get a sense of where these game consoles are sold and how many there are.
Many stores specialize is selling Playstation, so we can't name every store that has them in stock. But here's a sample of what we found.
Circuit City has between six and eight machines. Best Buy has anywhere from 26 to 30.
Wal-Marts and Targets have a maximum of 10.
Toys R' Us sold out during pre-sale specials. Same story with Game Stop. The K-Mart we called told us they wouldn't get them until after December 1st or later.
Undoubtedly, there will be some who don't buy the video game system for themselves. They'll buy it to make a profit, perhaps on eBay.
The most outrageous bid we found reached nearly 100-million dollars for a new PS 3 on eBay. But most are going for 25-hundred to 11-thousand dollars.
EBay has put sales restrictions on PS 3, limiting sales to only one console per account, and only highly-rated vendors may sell them.
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