A few weeks ago on this list, some people were discussing the Playstation 2, the video game console that came out in October. Sony, as all may recall, announced that it was unable to meet its earlier estimates for the U.S. production run, which ended up causing a massive shortage (EBWorld.com, an online video game store, says that it "does not know" when it will be able to fill orders placed after July 24(!)). Predictably, individuals started to sell them on eBay, as a magnificent example of arbitrage. Prices were as high as $1,200 (suggested retail price is $350). Since I want a PS2, I poked around on eBay tonight. I was very surprised by two things: 1) The number of hits returned by a search on "Playstation 2" is almost 8,000. Judging from the first couple of pages, about 85% of these are the article in question, not individual games or the original Playstation. 2) It is VERY hard to find a unit with a bid higher than $400, which is quite close to the MSRP. In other words, competition among sellers has driven the price down to nearly equilibrium. This is what one would expect, of course, but Sony's new units have been coming into the U.S. at a relative dribble (or so I understand). Ananda
