Last Wednesday Sony held a PlayStation 5 showcase. As far as online events go, it was alright. We got a look at the consoles, a price, and some new game announcements. However, what we did not get was a date we could pre-order the consoles from. Instead we were just given the release date, and then left hanging. The actual announcement for when everyone could pre-order came afterwards, via Twitter. Sony explained that everyone could start to pre-order the consoles the very next day, and that’s when the commotion began.
In the UK, we were told that the console wouldn’t be available to pre-order until 8am the next day. Safe in that knowledge, I went to bed. When I woke, I found that every retailer was already out of stock, I had lost my chance. Even retailers like Amazon opened up their pre-orders at 9am, just to give everyone a chance, but it was too little too late. The entire situation was a shambles, because most retailers actually opened up their pre-orders from midnight, but told consumers to wait in the hopes of stemming traffic, saving their servers from crashing.
I was bitterly disappointed by the whole thing. I love GAME, the UK retailer, because they offer cashback in the form of reward points on all purchases. At best I can hope to pre-order the console from another retailer, as long as the thousands of other people looking for one don’t beat me to it.
I didn’t get a PlayStation 4 at launch, so I can’t tell you if this was the case with that console. I do know that Nintendo had a similar situation with the Switch, but that was because they didn’t think that the new console would sell as well. Sony knows that the PlayStation 5 is going to sell well, and yet they’ve dropped it with no warning for pre-order, and now most of their fans have missed out on one. Everyone on Twitter is still salty about it, as am I.
Sony needs to do something to rectify the situation. I can’t believe how badly they’ve handled the pre-order openings for the PlayStation 5. Hopefully Microsoft will handle the pre-orders for the Xbox Series S and Series X much better. As long as they do, I can see them selling more units in the short time. Sony may have the monopoly on numbers, but they’re starting to feel like a corporation who doesn’t care about their customers.