I was speaking to my dad last week and he was telling me about the hassle he was having in trying to locate one of the new slimline PS2 consoles. I decided to have a look online in my local Argos store and surprise surprise, it too was out of stock.
(Sony coughs to PS2 shortage)
I checked all of the other electrical stores to no avail so it really did look like he wasn’t going to get one. (It was not for him, but for my niece and her boyfriend).
They are even being sold on Ebay at well over the 99 UKP asking price, but he was prepared to wait until after Christmas rather than pay those extortionate costs.
Ebay Auction
Having woke up at 3am in the morning I had come downstairs and made myself a coffee and was checking my email. I was just finishing up and waiting for some process to finish before I locked the computer and I went to Argos to check for something else. Out of interest I entered the part number that my dad had sent me for the PSII and to my shock, it was saying that they had some in stock.
I hit the order button quicker than you could say ‘ebay profit’ and it actually let me order the PS2 console and one of the ‘also hard to get’ games. Delivery was set for Tuesday 30th November between 8am and 4pm.
Over the next few days I continued to see articles about the lack of PS2’s and I began to wonder if my order was down to a glitch in the Argos ordering system.
Sony Playstation shortage predicted
Tuesday finally arrived and I was up at 4am.
By 9am having packed the kids off to school, I sat looking out of the window waiting for the delivery van to arrive, if in fact it was to arrive at all.
First to arrive was the postman, with a package in his arms. But too small for a PS2, and I didn’t think Argos was using them. It turned out to be a new 1Gb memory stick for this PC. ( http://linitx.com if you ever need parts for a PC, and they are quick).
So I powered down and fitted the new memory, still keeping an eye out the window, but I was all powered up and completed and no sign of the PS2.
I decided to go up and get showered, and knock me down with a feather if the doorbell doesn’t ring and the dogs go mad no sooner than 30secs after getting my big toe wet. Throwing my clothes back on and bolting down the stairs as fast as I could, I open the door to see the delivery driver with my CPC order 🙁 Damn… Still no PS2. Back to my shower.
It was just after 1pm now, and I was watching the news on BBC, when they did an article on the shortage of PS2’s and the selling of them on ebay. Now I knew that the order had been allowed to go through in error. I must have caught them at a time in the morning during an update or something like that. They were like rocking horse ‘do do’s’.
Another ring at the door and there was the delivery guy holding two packages with Argos printed all over them. Getaway I said to the driver who was looking back rather perplexed. I told him I wasn’t expecting them to be delivered and told him why. He had’nt heard and this was the last of several deliveries he had made that day. He had a small fortune in the back of his van and he didn’t know it.
Even though it had arrived, I was still not convinced, and thought maybe I had bought an old PS1 or the old style PS2, and proceeded to rip open the bag, and there it was, the PS2… woo hoo.
Now I had to phone my dad up and let him know that it wasn’t going to come, and then log onto Ebay and start my own auction off… ok, I am not that wicked… so I SMS’d him to let him know.
But it didn’t stop Cian from having his own bit of fun…
“Cian holding the PS2 to ransom”
