People clamoring, one man shot at PS3 release

Shoppers have camped in line for days to be first in U.S. to get PS3; Connecticut man shot in apparent robbery.

NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Gamers lined up by the thousands early on Friday, aiming to be one of the first in the United States to buy Sony's PlayStation 3, and a Connecticut man was shot outside a Wal-Mart while waiting for the video game machine.

Several of the weary shoppers had queued for more than two days outside Sony's midtown Manhattan store and had improvised creature comforts from street junk. They turned discarded bags of shredded office paper into billowy chairs and a lamp shade sheltered one man from the rain.

Video More video The mania over the new Playstation 3 video game system turns dangerous in Wisconsin. (November 17) Play video

And one man was shot early on Friday morning outside a Connecticut Wal-Mart store in while in line for the PS3, Connecticut State police said.

He was one of 15 to 20 people lined up outside the store when confronted by two armed men who demanded money at around 3:15 a.m., Lt. J. Paul Vance said in a press release.

Police said the victim had confronted the armed suspects and was shot. He was treated at the scene and transported to the University of Massachusetts Medical Center across the state line.

Police were searching for the two suspects.

2006 has been a tough year for Japan's Sony, which has suffered through a recall of nearly 10 million of its computer batteries, delays in the PS3 and a growing price war in the flat screen TV market. (Full story)

Shrugging off his company's woes, Sony Chief Executive Howard Stringer made light of himself before the crowd of gamers, most of whom were dressed in sweatshirts, jeans and T-shirts.

"I know I'm standing here in a stupid suit, but I'm actually happy," he told the crowd.

Sony is sure to rake in millions of dollars in revenue on Friday alone, with some 400,000 units expected to be available one week after an initial launch in Japan. Depending on the size of its hard drive, each PlayStation will sell for $500 or $600.

But Sony is expected to lose money initially on each sale of the PS3, which in addition to playing games, can surf the Web, download video and music and play movies with its Blu-ray high-definition disc drive. The Blu-ray player and other components have run up production costs, dragging Sony's game unit into a deep loss for the year to March.

Experts suggest each PS3 could last 10 years and could go a long way toward helping Sony meet its goal of keeping atop the $30 billion gaming market, as well as make Blu-ray the standard for next-generation DVD.

"Gaming is our primary focus, but the PS3 does so much that it can become the center piece of a home entertainment system," Kaz Hirai, chief executive of Sony Computer Entertainment America, told Reuters in an interview before the event.

Analysts say the PS3's high price could deter non-gaming consumers and loosen Sony's grip on the console market, in which it faces tough competition from Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii - a view Sony executives say is wrong.

"They will sell out of the 400,000 (units), with the hard core gamers," said IDC analyst Danielle Levitas. "But with Blu-ray, they are betting their strongest business unit on a technology that it's not clear most consumers want."

Despite the dramatic launch, actual PS3s may prove to be a rare sight compared with rival machines. Microsoft (Charts) expects to have shipped 10 million of its one-year-old Xbox 360s globally by Dec. 31, while Nintendo is targeting 4 million Wiis - that's double the number of PS3s expected. U.S. sales of the Wii start this weekend.

Sony (Charts) said that it hoped to sell 1 million units of the PS3 in the United States by the end of March.

Only about 500 PS3s were available for sale at the official event, officials said, leaving hundreds out in the rain, holding on to promises that more boxes would be made available when the store reopened at dawn.

Long lines formed in front of electronics retailers in other cities in the United States and Canada as well.

Mark MacDonald, who runs video game site gamevideos.com, suggested that that dearth of supply would encourage many of the first PS3 buyers to sell their units, perhaps on auction sites operated by eBay.

"You can make a lot of money off of it," he said.

Angel Paredes, who waited four days through several rain storms, was the first to buy a PS3 in the United States and said he would not sell his, even though many there speculated they could earn up to $2,000.

Kamau Romero, 24, an educator who was third in line, was not so certain. "It would take a lot to get it out of my hands, but it is possible."

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