PlayStation 5 scalpers use bots to hunt down scarce consoles amid Christmas shopping frenzy and Covid lockdowns
- Sony’s struggles in the first weeks of the launch could hurt its ability to draw gamers and developers to new platform
- Scalpers are deploying bots that constantly monitor online stores for changes in inventory and supplies, then automatically place orders
Sony Corp. has created one of the hottest gadgets of the year in the PlayStation 5, but its launch has been marred by scalpers who are buying up scarce supplies and threatening the long-term health of the company’s most important product.
Scalpers, who buy devices at retail and then resell at a higher price, have long been a challenge in the games business. But the problem is particularly acute this year because the coronavirus has squeezed production and pushed more console sales online – where scalpers use sophisticated bots to buy up the PlayStation 5 and Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox.
Furious gamers are calling out resellers for charging US$1,300 or US$1,400, almost triple the retail price, on sites like eBay and Twitter. “This is a launch disaster,” one Twitter post declared, vowing not to cave to usurious prices. “Scalpers can keep them.”
The threat is that Sony’s struggles in the first weeks of the launch could hurt its ability to draw gamers and developers to the new platform, undermining profits for years to come. A console’s debut is supposed to set off a virtuous cycle of consumers rushing to buy the devices, while developers debut games that capitalise on new graphics and processor capabilities, sending demand on both sides surging. Sony risks suffering the opposite.
“The PlayStation 5 could miss a critical chance to get into a good hardware-software upward spiral,” said Kazunori Ito of Morningstar Research. “The peak of the platform will likely be low and the platform’s total revenue earned won’t be as strong as we hoped for.”
