Thread: A popular reseller site claims it’s now sold over 130,000 PS5 consoles
Sales

3liteDragon

Roving Reporter
StockX says its US users sold the disc console for an average of $573.
More than 130,000 PlayStation 5 consoles have now been resold on popular online marketplace StockX in the US, according to its internal data. StockX is an auction site launched in 2016, originally focused on sneakers but later expanding to electronics following the launch of next-gen consoles last November. In 2019, the company was valued at over $1 billion. According to the company, it's now sold around 83,000 PlayStation 5 disc version consoles in the US, and around 55,000 digital edition machines, with an average sale price of $573 (disc) and $531 (digital). StockX previously claimed that around 60,000 PS5s were sold via its site in its launch month.

If accurate, StockX's US console sales represent 1.66% of the 7.8 million PlayStation 5 consoles Sony says it has sold as of March 31, 2021.

However, the actual number of consoles resold is likely far higher. According to a launch analysis of auction site eBay, over 60,000 PlayStation 5 consoles had been sold on that platform in just its first month on sale.Like other games consoles and popular consumer electronics items, PlayStation 5 supplies have struggled to meet demand during pandemic social restrictions. Sony has reportedly told analysts that it expects PlayStation 5 consoles to be in short supply until next year, as the global shortage of hardware components hampers many industries including video games hardware.

According to Taiwanese business website DigiTimes, one way the corporation could cope with the demand is via a redesign of the PS5 hardware. With next-gen consoles still widely sold out globally, and most restocks selling out in minutes, re-seller groups have faced criticism for their role in exacerbating the shortages. In the UK, the government's minister for digital and culture, Caroline Dinenage, confirmed in February that officials were even discussing a proposed bill that would make console scalping illegal.

Head of Xbox Phil Spencer said in November that he believed current console pre-order models were outdated and should be improved. In a bid to make the pre-order process less frustrating, Spencer said Microsoft had discussed giving customers the chance to put a deposit down and reserve a console with a guaranteed delivery date.

"We've had real discussions internally about, should I be able to reserve my slot? I'll put some money down, I know my machine's getting built January 20th, and I'll get it on February 1st," he said. "We have customers that would do that today."

Id Software co-founder John Carmack has suggested that console and GPU manufacturers auction off their own products, in an effort to cut out scalpers.
 
When you add that eBay number, suddenly it changes the perspective a bit. If there's money to be made and systems to be exploited, especially in times when a lot of people literally aren't allowed to work and the times are hard, stuff like this happens.

Curious how they want to improve it for future launches.
 
Just waiting for the big retail / online brands to pinch the gov't until someone steps in and handles these "scammers". In reality, they're exposing a huge flaw in our outdated supply chains. The more sensible choice would be for manufacturers to sell direct-to-customer and provide direct service to customers, but the neither retailers nor manufacturers want that...

...and therefore the "scammers" acting as another layer of middlemen will multiply.
 
  • This tbh
Reactions: John Day
Pretty crazy really, and disappointing. I dislike scalpers and the people that enable them but such is the way things work with the outmoded notion of how products are sold.
Couple that with our dependency on China to produce everything and here we are. I don't see it being fixed anytime soon. I *REALLY* wish our govts would slap China with massive tariffs, yeah I know it would make products a lot more expensive but we need some way to ween ourselves off our reliance on China. The sooner we recognize that they're not our "friends" and that the disaster this last 1.5 years has been heavily influenced by their actions the better.
 
$573 is not much of markup. Just go a buy one if you really want it. It's cheaper than PS3 was