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Two of the most anticipated giveaways of the holiday season went on sale this week, Microsoft rolling out its Xbox Series X | S and Sony making their PlayStation 5 debut. The only problem: finding one of the $ 499 consoles in stock.
Walmart, Best Buy and other retailers sold out both consoles on Friday. Demand was so high for the PlayStation 5, which went on sale Thursday, that it slowed down Walmart’s website and displayed error messages to some buyers on Thursday afternoon. Meanwhile, the Xbox Series X | S, which was released on Tuesday, was announced by Microsoft as its “biggest launch in Xbox history.”
Aimee Picchi
While some consumers were furious at their inability to purchase the consoles, resellers were busy listing new games on eBay, where resale prices soared to $ 32,000 for a new PlayStation 5 and $ 8,000 for a new one. Xbox Series X.
It remains to be seen whether consumers would pay more than 60 times the retail price of a PlayStation 5, but sky-high resale prices signal the intersection of a few pandemic-era trends: the game’s rise in popularity as well as the shift to online retailing during the crisis.
“A new console release is always exciting – it only happens every five to seven years,” noted Jordan Minor, software and games analyst at PCMag. But, he added, “Their rollout has been a bit of a mess, although every time a new console is launched it’s a mess.”
One of the problems was the reliance on online sales for both products. The PlayStation 5 debuted exclusively on online retail sites such as Walmart.com and BestBuy.com, allowing robots to break in and make purchases in milliseconds before actual human consumers, said Jason Kent at Cequence Security’s ThreatPost technology site. .
“Since most retailers have built their environments for high speed, high volume transactions, bots are taken over by the environment that tries to keep them out,” Kent told the publication. “The effort to create a retail store that thrills customers and enables transactions is in the hands of the robot makers.”
Disappointed gamers blamed retailers and manufacturers for the shortage of new consoles.
“It’s 2020 @Walmart, you should have had 1 per household for the Xbox release, “one consumer said on Twitter.” Noooo buy how much you want. What joke. 2020 and you retailers still don’t know how to stop bots and scammers. “
Walmart said it is restocking and will release more inventory throughout the holidays. “It’s not unusual to see bot activity, especially on hot items like the PS5. Our teams are working hard to prevent this and make sure our customers have access to these items,” a door said. speech in an email.
In a statement, Liz Hamren, head of Microsoft games, admitted that some consumers were disappointed.
“We know not everyone was able to get an Xbox Series X right away | S and we are working tirelessly with our partners around the world to bring to as many consoles as possible over time and encourage you to register with your local retailers directly for further details on availability in your market, ”said Hamren.
Pandemic game
The game has only grown in popularity since the coronavirus pandemic crippled the economy in March. With consumers stuck at home, many have turned to games to spend hours.
Consumers spent $ 11.2 billion on video games in the third quarter, which runs from July to September, a jump of 24% from the same period last year, according to NPD Group.
PCMag’s Minor offers some consolation for empty-handed buyers: Don’t worry about missing the same-day release. First, the new consoles don’t have a lot of games available at launch, and they might also have issues that will eventually be addressed by their manufacturers.
“Wait a year and it will be worth a year of games on it,” he said. “You might need your money for better things right now.”
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