Where in the hell is the PS/3?

I remember back around Christmas, Sony announced that they were unable to meet the holiday demand for the PS/3. I suspect part of this may have been artificial, since the resulting huge line-ups across the country showered the company with press everywhere. Unfortunately, those events lead to the deaths of a few people in incidents that occurred while in the long line-ups in sometimes cold, outdoor conditions.

During that period, I had passively walked into whatever electronics store I could find, and asked if they had a PS/3 for sale. The answer was always no.

So here we are, nearly six months later, and I’m still completely surprised that I can’t find a PS/3 in the city. Is it really because the demand is outpacing the supply? I find this hard to believe since nobody I know owns one yet. However, several of my friends own Nintendo Wii’s. While I’m not really interested in the PS/3 as a gaming environment, it is still the cheapest Blue-Ray DVD player on the market, and since I’m considering ditching cable altogether, I would really like a DVD player capable of doing high-def (so my high-def TV doesn’t sit there getting dusty). Another solution (one which I’m sure Microsoft is kicking themselves in the ass for) is to buy a Xbox 360 external HD DVD player. Apparently, this is just a run-of-the-mill HD DVD player, and every computer on the market will recognize it as such. Unfortunately, getting a software DVD player that does high definition is another challenge entirely, which makes that solution trickier.

If anyone actually knows of anyone with a PS/3, I’d love to know since I’ve never, ever seen one.