Scalpers Have Taken Advantage of Next-Gen Pre-Orders

Game over, man. Within the first 15-minutes of availability, the Xbox Series X|S unsurprisingly sold out. Less than a week ago, Sony revealed their prices for the Playstation 5 disc and digital versions with pre-orders apparently opening the following day. Sony not only failed in alerting the public of which retailers would be included, but they also failed to mention that some would start dropping pre-orders later that night. Xbox took advantage of this debacle, and announced specific times for the Xbox Series X|S pre-orders and corresponding retailers. September 22nd came along, and once pre-orders opened, many customers were met with site crashes due to a high influx of users and virtual lines with ridiculous wait times and false promises. 

Though Microsoft stayed true to its word of when and where pre-orders would drop, it didn’t take long for everything to fall apart. Scalpers and bots took advantage of the next-gen console pre-orders and quickly purchased and resold both the Playstation 5 and Xbox Series X|S for double, triple, and even quadruple the retail price via Ebay. As I scoured the site for any realistic prices – since I was unfortunate enough to not snag any console – the most common advertised for nearly $200 more than retail, plus $50-something-odd more in shipping. After no luck on Ebay, I couldn’t help but question which neckbeard would possibly dish out over a thousand dollars for a console that more likely than not would be available come November. You’d be surprised. I found one seller who set up a bid for an Xbox Series X pre-order, ultimately selling it at $1,800. Scroll down on the same page, and you’ll witness a ton of sellers pricing their pre-orders well over $900. Crack is one helluva drug, and these people seem to agree.

Considering the technical prowess of the Xbox Series X, it’s priced two-hundred-dollars more than its companion console, the Xbox Series S. It piqued my interest to check on some of the prices for the Series S on Ebay as well. Unfortunately, good luck finding one under $500. If you’re reading this – and are still considering buying a pre-order off of Ebay – please don’t spend the same amount of money as the Series X for the less powerful version. Though the specs for the Series S are still impressive, the Series X offers 12.15 TFLOP, 52 CU at 1.825 GHz – a whopping eight more TFLOPs than its companion. The Series X also boasts 1 TB of storage against 512 GB for the Series S. The faster CPU and more powerful GPU should be enough of an indication to not spend the same amount for less. You’d be a fool.   

To be perfectly transparent, I’m salty that I was unable to snag at least one of the consoles, as I’m sure many of you are who are in the very same position. Countless Twitter users have been commenting pictures of their secured pre-orders, with multiple claiming that they’ve bought more than one in case of a possible cancellation. I will try to remain professional in this instance – Nope. F%&k you kindly. Sorry, it slipped. You might have missed your chance to secure a pre-order for the next-gen consoles, but both Sony and Microsoft claim that more consoles will be available at launch for purchase.

The Xbox Series X|S launches on November 10th, with the Playstation 5 two days later on November 12th in the US and then November 19th in the UK.