preorder

Have you ever preordered a video game? Did you feel good about yourself after doing so? Yes? No? Truth is, you should almost never, ever, preorder a video game.

A preorder does virtually nothing for you, but it does a great deal for various other parties. First off, it's a free loan. Think about it. You're essentially giving a game retailer 5 or more dollars for free. All you get back in return is a receipt that you've done so. A big-name retailer now has your 5 dollars that it, in turn, can do whatever it wants with. Sure, it might seem trivial on a small scale, but multiply your 5 dollars times the amount of preorders made a day, and we're talking millions of free unearned dollars here.

Game distributors and retailers also use preorder data to gauge interest in a title. They're basically using your donation to measure how successful a marketing campaign is even before anyone has played the game. And once you've pledged those few dollars, odds are you'll be back come release day. If not, the money stays with the retailer, where you'll most likely use it on another title -- or even worse, forget about it. … Read more

If you can't wait to get a U.S. carrier version of Samsung's Galaxy S III, Amazon is offering the unlocked version early.

Samsung Electronics' latest flagship smartphone is available for preorder now, and will ship June 1.

There is, of course, a catch. Since the unlocked Galaxy S III isn't optimized for U.S. carriers, there are limitations to what networks it can run on and how fast it can go.

The unlocked version is a GSM device, meaning Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel are out. At AT&T and T-Mobile, the device won't … Read more

According to initial reports from Fortune's Philip Elmer-DeWitt, Apple's stock of iPhone 4S allocated for preorders in Hong Kong sold out in 10 minutes. Apple began the preordering Friday in China and 14 other countries.

Ticonderoga's Brian White, an analyst specializing in Apple's business in China, reported that the window to reserve an iPhone 4S in China was short and sweet and that long lines are expected for this Friday's brick-and-mortar launch in Hong Kong, despite the fact that Siri is not yet operational in Cantonese or Mandarin.

Though many tech gurus here in the … Read more

Apple's iPhone 4S has beaten a single-day preorder record set by its predecessor, the iPhone 4.

According to Apple, first-day preorders of the iPhone 4S hit 1 million, easily besting the previous single-day preorder record of 600,000 set last year by the iPhone 4.

"We are blown away with the incredible customer response to iPhone 4S," Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, said in a statement today announcing the feat. "The first day pre-orders for iPhone 4S have been the most for any new product that Apple has ever launched … Read more

History repeated itself this morning, with the iPhone 4S preordering process getting off to what can only be described as a bumpy start in the U.S.

Despite the promise of a 12:01 a.m. PT starting time for preorder sales from Apple and its carrier partners, Apple's store experienced intermittent errors shortly after that deadline. Its online doors opened about 45 minutes after that to let people order the company's new top-end smartphone.

AT&T took even longer to begin offering preorders, and some would-be Sprint customers reported delays of two hours trying to place … Read more

Amid this morning's iPhone 4S preorder meltdown on Apple's online store, the company quietly announced that an unlocked version of the device is coming next month.

Beneath the options to get the iPhone 4S on either AT&T, Sprint, or Verizon, the company teased that users can also wait until November to get an unlocked and contract-free version of the device.

"The unlocked iPhone works only on supported GSM networks, such as AT&T in the U.S.," Apple says in its description. "When you travel internationally, you can also use a micro-SIM … Read more

One minute past midnight tonight Pacific time, Apple's next iPhone becomes available for preordering in seven countries, including the U.S., and the big question is whether Apple and its carrier partners face a meltdown similar to what happened with last year's model.

You might remember that shortly after the iPhone 4 went on sale, both Apple and AT&T's online sites ran into problems almost immediately. A deluge of eager buyers hit the two sites in the early morning, grinding the ordering process to a halt. The following day Apple released a statement saying that … Read more

Amazon's Kindle Fire tablet continues to sell at a brisk pace, though it remains to be seen whether the gadget will match the torrid pace that Apple's iPad set.

In the six days after the first day of preorder sales, the Kindle Fire has been selling at a rate of about 20,000 units a day, according to eDataSource, a market research firm. This follows an eDataSource report on Monday that said Amazon sold an estimated 95,000 Kindle Fires on the first day of preordering. The Kindle Fire was announced on September 28, and Amazon began taking … Read more

The Kindle Fire outsold the other three new Kindles combined despite the higher price for the Fire, according to a market research firm.

Kindle Fire sales hit an estimated 95,000 units in the first day of sales, according to eDataSource, a marketing research firm that tracks orders via e-mail confirmations of orders placed. The projected numbers are based solely on orders placed with Amazon's Web site, according to Carter Nicholas, CEO of eDataSource, which released the report on Friday. eDataSource tracks 800,000 inboxes, according to Nicholas.

The Kindle Fire launched last week at $199 and was made available for preorder immediately on the Amazon Web site. Shipments will start in November.

Along with the Fire, Amazon announced three other new Kindles, with prices of $79 for the new Kindle, $99 for the new Kindle Touch, and $149 for the Kindle Touch 3G. But those models combined still did not outsell the Fire, according to eDataSource, which estimates that sales of the other new Kindle units totaled approximately 25,000 units during the same period.

Alas, the Fire and the other Kindles can't hold a candle to sales of the original iPad. Apple reported that 300,000 were sold on the first date of sales in April 2010. … Read more