This holiday season and beyond, there are only two words on everyone’s lips when it comes to the
hottest gift around - Playstation 5. While other video game systems like the Nintendo Switch and
Xbox Series X and Series S have attracted a fair amount of hype, the arrival of the PS 5 blew the
gaming world wide open. Ever since the first Playstation launched in 1995, Sony has been a
powerhouse in the gaming world, and hot games like Borderlands 3, Cyberpunk 2077, Gotham Knights, and
Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales had everyone rushing to get the next piece of hardware.
And what they found was empty shelves and out of stock signs on every website.
Not only is the PS5 the hottest console on the market, it’s the hardest to get.
Despite Sony promising there would be no shortage of consoles for the holiday season,
countless parents quickly found themselves scrambling to get their hands on a console so
their child wouldn’t be disappointed - or to play themselves while their child played with their new
dolls or playset. Their options were often to pay ridiculous sums from a third-party website,
to spend all their time refreshing websites hoping to pick up a console that would sell out
in minutes, or to just give up and hope junior will be happy with a chemistry set instead.
So what happened? How did the Playstation 5 become
one of the hardest video game systems to obtain in years?
The culprit, as with most things, is 2020. In years past, shopping for Christmas gifts followed
a pretty standard procedure - the chaotic Thanksgiving ritual known as Black Friday.
At the crack of dawn on Friday morning - or for some stores, on Thursday night as soon as families
put away the turkey leftovers - big stores like Walmart and Target would open their doors
for holiday shopping. Advertising big discounts including on electronics like video game systems,
they would lure bargain-hunting shoppers in - and the shoppers would respond in force.
Mobs of shoppers would almost bust down the doors to be the first to get the sale items,
and many families would be stocked for Christmas by the first day after Thanksgiving.
Stores would make sure they were well-stocked, and families would
know there was a good chance they could just grab that treasured item right off the shelves.
But in 2020, everything changed.
The pandemic meant that crowding thousands of people into a Walmart and letting them
fight over the last box was not a good idea. So retailers shifted their Black Friday sales
online for the most part, having the items go live at a predetermined time while the actual
stores remained closed. People could get online, wait for their item to go on sale,
and quickly snatch that PS5 before it sold out. Many families assumed they would have a
good chance - after all, it couldn’t be that many people clicking on the exact same second, right?
Wrong. Shoppers often found items sold out only seconds after they went on sale.
Shoppers would report never seeing the PS5 on sale at all on websites, instead immediately
defaulting to an “out of stock” button. Who are these super-shoppers who apparently know exactly
when PS5s are going to show up and can buy them before anyone else has a shot? No, it’s not The
Flash and Quicksilver - the answer is actually a lot more mundane and less human than that.
Most of the online stock of the hottest items aren’t bought by people manually,
but are bought by programs designed to snap them up as soon as they appear.
These are called Retail bots, and they come in two types. Sniping bots, the older model,
are tracking devices that monitor a website and send their user an alert the second something
goes on sale. The user can then jump online and stock up before anyone has a chance.
The second type of bot, though, is more advanced.
This is an all-in-one program that when installed, will not only notice that the item is on sale
but can actually purchase it using a link to the owner’s credit card. Because these
bots can act in a fraction of a second and bypass the time it takes human fingers to
click on the various buttons, no one else has a chance. But these unstoppable bots didn’t
actually originate in the current market of people trying to buy video game systems online.
They were designed to buy something else entirely - shoes. But not just any shoes. Many sneaker
companies release limited-edition shoes, often with celebrity endorsements. This has led to many
huge lines for people who wanted them, but the most effective were those who used computerized
solutions. Many people were probably wishing they had these bots to snipe some toilet paper in 2020.
So is there any way to stop these bots?
They’ve been a plague in another area for years. Concerts and stage shows, with limited seating,
often saw all their seats sniped within minutes by bots. That led some markets like the United
Kingdom to ban the use of bots for ticket sales, but no country has banned their use
for standard retail sales. Other retailers are coming up with sneaky solutions, like initially
listing the item for far more expensive than the actual prize. Real customers who click through
would be offered a hefty rebate to take the price down to the normal one,
but bots without the ability to recognize that would be out of luck. Other retailers
are monitoring orders and deleting bulk orders that seem like they were picked up by a bot.
But who’s looking for all these PS5s? Is it just enthusiastic
gamers and parents looking to get their hands on the latest system?
Nope. The culprit, unfortunately, is much more shady than that. The PS5 has fallen victim to
the bane of limited edition concerts and sneakers - scalpers. These purchasers,
often armed with the best bots, usually have no interest in the actual item. What they have an
interest in is how much YOU want it. Gamers see bare shelves and sold-out signs on every website.
Junior writes a letter to Santa saying that the only thing he wants is a PS5.
Gamers and parents are desperate - and the entire stock is in the hands of resellers, whose only
interest is to sell the systems for as much as they possibly can. The PS5s sold out in seconds
often wind up on second-hand sales websites where they’re sold for multiple times the price,
or put up for auction so they can see just how much people are ready to pay.
How high can the price go?
The standard system goes for $500, pretty routine for a modern video game system.
But by launch day in November, scalpers were already selling the system on auction sites
for as much as $1700. Those prices remained sky-high as the Christmas season ramped up,
as the scalpers learned that apparently there was no price too high for gamers
seeking their personal Holy Grail. While retailers tried to crack down on scalpers,
the bots were hard to get around and gamers continued to report near-instant sell-outs.
But why can’t Sony just make more?
Retail is a game of supply and demand, and the demand was clearly outstripping the supply.
It’s great to have people in line trying to get your hot new item - but it’s not so great that
most of them are walking away empty-handed and unhappy - or worse, for Sony, deciding to pick
up a Switch or Xbox instead. So why isn’t Sony simply making sure that there are enough PS5s
in stock so that everyone who wants one can find them at their nearest big box or video game store,
where bots can’t work their dastardly magic?
The answer may be that demand is so high that the company simply can’t keep up.
Shortly after the console debuted, Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO
Jim Ryan revealed a crazy statistic. The Playstation 5 had as many preorders in
twelve hours as the Playstation 4 received over three months! It achieved that sales
level one hundred and eighty times faster than the previous system! With potentially
over one million pre-orders, it would be hard to match that level of demand in the best of times.
And as anyone who has looked out their window over the last year knows, this is not the best
of times. Manufacturers have been met with all sorts of added struggles, from delays in shipping
to new safety restrictions at factories that slowed down production. While Sony had a lot
of PS5s ready for launch, they may not have been prepared for this overwhelming demand.
So why is demand so much higher than for past systems?
Well, we’re all stuck at home! People aren’t going out to the movies or to concerts, and that means
they’re searching for new and exciting types of at-home entertainment. Along with streaming
services like Netflix, the big winners have been video game systems that provide a high-tech,
immersive entertainment experience. We already saw the level of demand for video games right now when
the Switch and the latest Animal Crossing game became the hottest items in the world in March,
and home-bound people everywhere discovered the joy of designing your own private virtual island.
And while the situation isn’t exactly like it was in March, the demand has not let up.
But Sony may have contributed to their own misfortune too.
Both Sony and Microsoft kept gamers glued to their computer screens waiting for an official
announcement of the PS5’s design and other details, building up hype. By the time they
released the official artwork - only months before release - the fandom was in an uproar
debating whether it lived up to the hype. The pre-release ad campaign by Sony was one of the
biggest in video game history, and it worked - maybe too well. The fanbase was raring to go, and
when the machine finally went on sale, demand was through the roof. Did Sony have enough to cover
the demand? Maybe, but when you consider the added factors of bots and scalpers, they came up short.
So is there any hope for a desperate gamer?
Well, there’s always saying goodbye to a chunk of your bank account and buying from a reseller, and
hoping they’re on the level. But if you’re looking to buy the system direct, you’ll need some luck
and some inside tips. If you’re determined to buy online, it might help to use a smartphone
rather than a computer. Smartphones streamline the checkout process and might save precious
seconds that could be the difference between a PS5 and heartbreak. You can follow accounts
that monitor the big websites for stock updates and keep a careful watch on your notifications.
Make sure you’re logged in and your payment information is saved before it’s time to buy,
and if possible save a PS5 to your shopping cart even if it’s sold out.
That way it’ll be waiting in your cart when it’s available, giving you one
less button to click. And then hope everything goes right - you might have seconds at most.
But is there another, better way?
That depends on how willing you are to go shopping the old-fashioned way.
Check with your local retailers to see if any of them are taking preorders.
Follow social media accounts that track stock at major big box stores like Best Buy, Walmart,
and Target. The bots can’t snap up on-the-shelf consoles in seconds, and you may have a better
chance at getting one if you manage to show up in person. But like the online strategies, this
can be a very short distance between success and another sad trip home empty-handed - especially
since many stores are splitting their sales between in-person and digital purchases.
You’ve tried everything, and come up empty. Is there any hope?
Well, Sony will continue to produce as many consoles as they can, and the odds are demand
will decrease in the coming months as the launch hype dies down and everyone who wants a PS5 will
be able to get one at some point in 2021. And there may even be some advantages for
people who wait a little to get a console. New hardware and software can sometimes have bugs,
and there’ll be time for the designers to work out those kinks before you sit down and play.
New consoles can be prone to overheating and problems with turning on and off, and the second
wave of releases may run more smoothly. The game library will be larger, with many top launches
that weren’t ready for day one being available. Game critics will have time to weigh in,
and you’ll have a better opportunity to pick and choose the games that are right for your tastes.
There may even be a price cut for the console and the games by the time it’s readily available.
Maybe it’s time to take a break, play some Animal Crossing,
and forget about the mad rush to get a Playstation 5. Or maybe it’s time
to keep refreshing that Best Buy shopping portal. It’s bound to show up any second now.
While you’re waiting, why not check out “Why Do Games Cost $60? Why Hasn’t the
Price of Video Games Changed?” for more on the video game economy, or try this video instead.