Ebay bans Imported PS3s

eBay.co.uk has banned listings in Europe of Japan or US model PlayStation 3s, declaring that only consoles bought within the European Union can be re-sold there.

Last month, Hong Kong-based import game seller Lik-Sang closed down after losing a law suit against Sony for selling Japanese PSPs to European consumers.

Sony announced shortly afterwards that it would be move to stop any other "grey importing" of its products into Europe, which led to another major online importer, Play-Asia.com, suspending all orders of Sony products to the EU.

Almost as soon as pre-orders of the PS3 became available in the US, ads from re-sellers started popping up on eBay, some asking for as much as $100,000 for the console. eBay removed the ads, telling GameSpot, "the seller must have legal ownership of the product. As such, pre-ordered items cannot be sold on the site."

Thanks to Gamespot