Next Generation Consoles Unobtainable?

The Console Wars is one of the most anticipated wars of the modern world. Some people scream PS5, and some prefer the Xbox Series X and S. “This holiday, without a doubt, is the most pivotal hardware launch season the video game industry has seen in almost a decade.” (Statt, 2020) But something the gaming world has not seen in a long time is an unobtainable console. People everywhere are wanting the 4k, 120FPS gaming for cheap, that they have never been able to experience before. But since the next generation of consoles have come out, there has been a large demand for the Series X and PS5. And it's not just the consoles that are affected, PC gamers are as well! The Nvidia RTX 3000 has also been out of stock for a while. People everywhere are craving to get one, and even go to the lengths of buying them second hand from scalpers online. A scalper is a person that buys something, and sells it for more. And there are a massive amount of scalpers.

Looking anywhere online for a next gen, the Series X and PS5 are nowhere to be found for their asking price of $500 or $300. The consoles are found on Ebay and 2nd hand sellers for above $700! Some are going so far that they would sell them for $1500! To anyone that wants a reasonable price, they have no choice but to wait and see if they have the chance and the reaction time to be able to pick up one of the consoles.

But why are these consoles so hard to pick up? It's mostly because there aren’t enough to go around, but there are some more factors behind why and how. Since the middle of last year, COVID-19 has prevented a lot of people from working and stopping some services. And it's no different from this year. Many Americans have gotten the virus, and spread it around, causing workplaces to slow down and close. This is the same for Microsoft and Sony, the developers of the Xbox and Playstation. Both of the companies have had to slow down because of the lack of materials. And sadly, it's making the production time of these consoles very slow and limited. But that isn’t the main factor.

The biggest reason the next gen consoles are so hard to get is because of the companies, Microsoft and Sony. They know they are the biggest companies around, but they were incompantet this time. The Xbox and Playstation have been the biggest consoles around since the start of the 21st century, and have continued to dominate the market, but they chose not to prepare enough consoles for the consumers. As soon as the first batch of PS5’s and Series X’s were dropped online, they sold out everywhere in 5 minutes.

The companies should have seen it coming, but they weren’t aware of how changing this console is to the community. This is the first few affordable home consoles to offer 60FPS at 4K. The high frame rate is enough for anyone to snag one, but the 4K was over the top. The previous consoles were crushed by their older brothers, and when there is a better version of what you currently have, then you know you want it.

The console’s launches weren’t as smooth either, with bots being set up to buy as many as possible as fast as possible. They did not have a system built into their websites. Because of this, many scalpers online were able to acquire a mass amount of consoles and sell them above asking price that Microsoft, Sony, and other retailers asked for. This caused thousands of people who preordered their consoles to have it backed up for months, and no one could get them, unless they bought them from scalpers online for a huge scam.

This issue could be solved if there was more stock, if there were more resources, if Covid didn’t affect us, if scalpers didn’t use bots. But because of there being so many issues, we only have to wait it out and see what happens. Who knows? Maybe Microsoft and Sony could get through these issues and put out thousands of consoles, but so far, it doesn’t seem like we're going to get anywhere.

1. Statt, N. (2020, November 19). THE GAMING INDUSTRY KEEPS FAILING MISERABLY AT SELLING ITS MOST IMPORTANT PRODUCTS. The Verge. https://www.theverge.com/21451144/sony-ps5-preorder-microsoft-xbox-series-x-nvidia-rtx-3080-mess