I wish someone would pay me $500 to get their hands on my wii...

Newspapers have been getting a lot of flack in recent years for inaccurate reporting as well as an occasional inability to grasp the subject matter that they are talking about. I'll admit I don't read a whole lot of newspaper articles (I subscribe to the Baltimore Sun primarily for the Sunday circulars, coupons, and auction listings), but every now and then I read an article, and it sometimes gives me pause.

Like this article from the Newark Star Ledger a few days ago. It deals with the shortages that consumers are encountering trying to buy the Nintendo Wii game console. For the most part it's pretty straightforward.

But it also included this claim - if you're looking for a Wii online, aftermarket prices on eBay and other sites are ranging around $500.

I wish. If there are Wii's selling for $500 on eBay, it's because they are including a ton of games and extra controllers. I've sold 3 Wii's on eBay in the last year. One in January went for $390, but the most recent one I sold last month went for $270 . Prices have gone up since then, but they are nowhere near $500.

I wish they were, as I still have one more on the way to me from Amazon. The last one I got from Amazon was sold to a coworker for a very modest profit - if I could really get $500 for it, I wouldn't have sold it to him. I'm not totally convinced I'm going to make any money on the one I have, and I passed up an opportunity on Black Friday to order another one from Amazon as I didn't think it was worth tying up more money in Wii's.

I'm kind of curious where the $500 figure came from. My guess is that the reporter either didn't know how to use eBay and saw some auctions with lots of extra stuff sell for $500+, or he got it third-hand from someone and put it in the article without any fact-checking.

And for those who are curious, in the past year I've purchased 8 Wii's - 2 from circuitcity.com, one from walmart (in-store), one from gamestop (in-store), two from target (in-store), and two from Amazon. Of them, 3 were sold on eBay, one will be listed on eBay in the next few weeks, one was given as a wedding present to bsom and t, two were sold to coworkers, and one is plugged into my tv at casa de mad.