Amazon is sort of selling the Xbox Series X for over $ 1,000

Almost a year after the release of the PS5 and Xbox Series X they are still incredibly hard to find, and expensive, including at Amazon where the monopoly retailer appears to be selling at least a few Microsoft consoles for around $ 1,000, double what they’re actually supposed to cost.

Kotaku was alerted to the seemingly sketchy activity by an informant who was reading Amazon Warehouse’s gaming offerings earlier today when they found out a list for the Xbox Series X up to $ 984, and in some cases even more. The Xbox Series X is said to sell for $ 500, and Amazon Warehouse is said to be the online retailer’s discount store for refurbished and opened boxed goods. So why does Amazon double-sell second-hand products?

It could be a coding error, or it could have something to do with the dozens of advertisements made by scalpers on the site trying to price abuses desperate consumers looking for next-gen consoles. You may have noticed in recent years that Amazon’s online store experience is kind of a mess, and especially since all the supply chain issues have arisen after the start of the pandemic, all kinds of price anomalies have slipped through the cracks.

Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

As Ars Technica reported A year ago, a report by consumer watchdog group Public Citizen found that cases of predatory pricing and defective products were rampant in the largest retailer in the world. This is in addition to Amazon’s existing difficulties in selling all manner of mislabeled trash via its battle royale of mostly unsupervised third-party resellers. But over the months, some people are clearly more willing to take price and quality risks to finally get their hands on a new console.

“I decided to ‘bite the bullet’ and pay double for the XBox Series X over the retail price in stores,” wrote a recent review on the Xbox Series X Amazon listing page. I was a little reluctant to pay that much (almost $ 900) and do it from a third party, but I really wanted to experience the next generation of games. “

In this person’s case, the console turned out to be faulty. Microsoft was able to fix it under the existing warranty, but the whole fiasco still ended up being an overpriced headache. “If I could go back and start over, I wouldn’t do this purchase again. I would patiently wait to find a console in stores at retail, ”they wrote. “I can’t help but feel cheated.”

Unfortunately, it might still take some time before this is possible. Next-gen consoles are still mostly sold everywhere, with new inventory running out as soon as it arrives, although scalped inventory continues to be billed at disgusting markups. Last week, people across the country lined up for Blocks just for a chance to buy PS5s and Xbox Series Xs at Best Buy for MSRP.

“[The shortage is] is going to be with us for months and months, certainly until the end of this calendar year and into the next calendar year, ”Xbox boss Phil Spencer said. in a recent interview with The Envelope. In the meantime, try not to give in to scalpers, or in this case, Amazon.