Aussie gamers are throwing away money if they buy a Xbox 360 console off eBay users in the US.

Gamers who were able to get a hold of Microsoft’s Xbox 360 games console in the US, (released on Tuesday) immediately resold them on eBay. The resold products fetched thousands of dollars for packages that sometimes also included games and other add-ins.

According to Xbox regional director David McLean, this is great for Microsoft as it showed how much in demand its console was.

“Having consoles sold on eBay says a lot about the demand for our product. However that’s all good and well, but what these Australian gamers have to realise is a couple of things. One of them is the games console is set for NTSC television standard, while Australian TV sets are set for PAL. While there are TVs built with both standards, users will also have problems with games and DVDs as both are Region 4 encoded,” said McLean.

In a SMH article, according to eBay 1800 Xbox 360s were sold there between midnight and noon Pacific time on Tuesday. Through the online auction site the average price for consoles, including those sold with games and other add-ons, was $A896. According to a spokesperson, some console packages were selling for as much as $US2500, with bidding and sales prices varying widely.

Gamers patient enough to wait until March 2006 the Xbox Core bundle will cost $499.95 in Australia, and A$649 for the upgraded Xbox 360 bundle.