If you want to know how much a pawn shop will sell a used PS3 for, then this is your post!
This might sound odd to some people, but it is really a common question that people ask. Just how much do pawn shops actually sell used Playstation 3’s for?
Well, just to start with, there is never just one answer that I can give that will be suitable to all pawn shops across the country.
Just like buying a car, if you go to one Chevy dealership they may be willing to sell it for one price, but if you go to the Chevy dealership down the street, you may find that they will sell it even cheaper.
Well, things are no different with pawn shops typically speaking.
You have tor keep in mind that pawn shops aren’t like big box stores such as Best Buy or the Home Depot.
Pawn shops are owned by individual, small business owners, each with their own opinions about what a good price to sell something for might be.
Just the same, because of the variety among owners out there, you will also find that some pawn shops don’t even take in PS 3’s to begin with, but simply because the pawnbroker that owns the pawn shop doesn’t want to work with them.
So with all of that having been said, let’s get down to the facts of the question.
When a pawn shop turns around to sell a used PS3, there is a variety of information that they will take into account such as what the system has with it, what generation it is, how much storage it has, and what condition it is in. Typically speaking, when pawn shops sell used PS3’s, their prices are very reasonable.
Different Things Pawn Shops Will Look At When Deciding How Much To Sell A Playstation 3 For
Pawn shops are going to look at a variety of things when determining the price of a used PS3 in their store. Let’s look at a brief list and how you might use this to your advantage.
The Condition Of The System & Controllers
The first thing that a pawn shop is going to consider when setting the price for a used PS3 is going to be the condition of the system and what it comes with.
If the system itself is pretty beat up, with a bunch of marks and scratches all over it, it is very likely that a pawn shop is going to ask less for it then the common average price for them in your area.
If you happen to see several PS3’s for sale at a pawn shop when you go shopping for one, and one of the systems looks a little roughed up, dirty, has stickers on it, etc., then there is a good chance that you will be able to get that system for a pretty good deal.
The reason for that is that the pawn shop knows it will be harder for them to sell systems that have physical defects, so when you inquire about it, if you try to negotiate a better price – they may be very motivated to work with you on that.
Furthermore, systems that come with just 1 controller instead of 2 or a controller that is “Well used,” then the pawn shop will also probably be more willing to mark the price down if you are a willing buyer.
The “Generation” Or Age Of The System
Another thing that a pawn shop is probably going to take into account when pricing a used playstation is what generation of the system it is.
The first generation of Playstation 3’s are big, heavy, hard to move around and generally thought to be undesirable.
The third generation however are often thought to be “Cheap” with their slide open doors and sometimes difficult to use disc locking mechanism.
So with that in mind, the second generation Playstation 3’s are typically going to go for the most money and therefore be priced a little higher than other systems, assuming that the condition and storage is similar.
The Storage Capacity Of The System
The third thing that pawn shops will take into account when pricing a PS3 is going to be the device’s maximum storage capacity.
When the Playstation 3 was released, they came out with hard drives as small as 20GB. By the time they finished their production run, getting a Playstion 3 with a 500GB hard drive was pretty easy.
Since the hard drive size impacts that number of games that you can have downloaded, installed, and ready to play on your system, the storage capacity is a big deal for pawn shops.
Any Bundled Extras
Not all pawn shops will separate items when they come in. If a PS3 comes in with 20 games, 4 controllers, the move, etc. then some pawn shops will keep all of those things together and resell the systems the exact same way that they came in.
In these cases, a pawn shop will ask more for the system if it comes with a bunch of extras, but that seems like common sense, doesn’t it?
Fair Market Price
Last but not least, pawn shops are going to look at the fair market price for the systems currently in your area.
Not all areas are the same with some video game resellers asking more for the systems then others. In addition, local demand for the system will vary from location to location throughout the country and therefore, that will also affect the asking price for the systems.
Just the same, if the system is a special edition, like a collector’s series that was released with a game – then that will typically fetch a higher price because of the desirability for anything in limited production volume.
The Bottom Line
So when we take all of this into account, at the time of this writing (early 2016), a PS3 will typically sell for between $69-$149 at a pawn shop, and often on the lower end of that.
In the rare occasion that the pawn shop has a limited production, special edition Playstation 3, complete with the box and everything else to make it really collectible, they might sell for as much as $500 depending on which edition of the system it was.
As time goes on, you can reasonably expect the prices on Playstation 3’s to fall, probably by roughly 10% a year – with the exception of the limited production systems as those will only get more rare and therefore, potentially more desirable.
