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PS5 Pre-Orders - A Tale Of Woe And Loss

PS5 Pre-Orders – A Tale Of Woe And Loss

By Justin Diaz
September 17, 2020

If you’re one of the many individuals that tried to place PS5 pre-orders unsuccessfully yesterday, you were likely met with an initial feeling of confusion.

Followed by woe, loss, and despair. Then eventually anger or annoyance. Yesterday afternoon Sony held its PlayStation 5 Showcase event online. It was mostly game reveals via trailers. But at the end of the event it finally revealed the price of the console and when it would be released.

Sony stated that pre-orders for the PS5 would begin as early as Thursday morning from its retail partners. But its retail partners weren’t having any of that nonsense. No. It was go-time. So, Wal-Mart opened the flood gates by pulling the trigger first.

What followed was a series of chaos and obsessive compulsive clicking to refresh pre-order pages. Leading to the great PS5 depression that many people are in right at this very moment. At least, those that didn’t get a pre-order locked in.

PS5 pre-orders were a catastrophe, but blame Wal-Mart

Sure, it’s easy to mostly blame Sony for this colossal disaster of a pre-order period.

Sony after all makes the console. Sony sets the rules on when to sell. And Sony did say that pre-orders for the PS5 would begin as early as Thursday at select retailers. But, then again Sony doesn’t really control its retail partners.

It can’t physically stop them from selling early. It could send out cease and desist orders and maybe, eventually not allocate stock to those partners in the future.

If you think about it though it can’t really do that either. The retailers it sells the PS5 through are some of the biggest retailers globally. So holding back on stock might just be shooting itself in the foot.

No, really you should be blaming Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart in this case is like that one friend that everyone listens to. Then that friend goes and does something stupid, and everyone follows. Wal-Mart rushed in trying to be the hero by selling early.

And all that did was cause panic and frantic attempts at purchasing. Leaving a lot of people without the chance to buy because they thought pre-ordering would stick to the schedule that Sony laid out.

Alas, that isn’t the case. And many are left feeling unfulfilled during what should have been an exciting and joyous time.

 

Xbox swooped in to wipe away tears

Here most people were jumping from retailer to retailer trying to get their pre-orders in. And Microsoft was just sitting back and watching things burn with a tub of popcorn in hand.

Just then, at the darkest hour of the new console generation, the official Xbox Twitter account swooped in to wipe away people’s tears. “Don’t worry. We’ll let you know the exact time pre-orders start for you soon.”

It was a message of hope. A potential beacon of light for anyone looking to grab at least one of the new consoles before launch day. Xbox was effectively assuaging fears and poking fun at Sony at the same time.

Lightheartedly of course. But poking fun all the same. While PS5 diehards will still not be satisfied until they’re able to pre-order or buy their very own console, those that may have wanted both can be assured that they can prepare to pick up the Xbox Series X or Xbox Series S.

 

At least you can pre-order the accessories and games

It’s not all bad. There may still be a chance that some retailers refresh stock on PS5 pre-orders before the official launch day.

Worst case scenario you may have to brave the front lines again on November 12 to try and buy the PS5 then. But, at least you can get some of your ducks in a row now.

Because all of the accessories are up for pre-order too. As are most of the launch day game titles. Like Demon’s Souls. If you can’t get your console yet, you can at least set yourself up for everything else. Lest you miss out on those as well.

If there’s one lesson to be learned here, it’s that anytime a new highly anticipated product goes up for sale (pre-order or not), it’s usually the wild west, so you need to be prepared for any situation. Look to the NVIDIA RTX 30 series GPUs as an example.

Those went up for sale this morning at 6AM, and all stock is already gone. But wait! You can still find one on eBay for nearly $1,900! More than double the original cost. Fear not though. More stock of all of this will pop back up soon.

It’s just a waiting game at this point. Until then, enjoy some of your PS4 backlog. Get to those games you swore you’d play when you bought them at a steep discount. They’re collecting dust.