Padfootball: Over One Million Buyers Rush Out To Buy New Playstation 4

The consumer quest has begun for the current video game holy grail, the PlayStation 4. Sony's new PS4 home game console officially goes on sale Friday for $399. Demand for the PS4 and Microsoft's own new home system, the Xbox One (out Nov. 22, $499) is expected to outstrip supply through the holiday season and into 2014, says Norman Fong, CEO and co-founder of BuyVia, which has a smartphone app for tracking retail deals. Read more after the cut.

Elsewhere, the line at the Game Stop store in West Ocean City, Md., began at 4 a.m. Thursday, when 14-year-old James Stewart brought a folding lawn chair and parked it right beside the entrance.
Consumers are eager because the PlayStation 4 is Sony's first new home system in seven years, an eternity in the fast-paced consumer technology world. Sony and Microsoft hope to reinvigorate the console game market with their new higher-powered systems and more immersive and innovative games. Retailers from Best Buy to Target have sold many of the initial systems to consumers on pre-order. But most stores hope to have a few extras available for the hopeful.
"We have thousands of pre-orders, but we also have PlayStation 4s on hand for people to purchase," says Walmart spokeswoman Sarah McKinney. While it expects to run out, Walmart will have PS4 and Xbox One systems for Black Friday shoppers. "We're going to be putting them out as fast as we can get them in," she says.
Sony has sold more than 1 million PS4s to retailers already and hopes to sell more than 5 million globally by the end of March. "Getting out of the gate is important," says Sony Computer Entertainment President and CEO Andrew House.