How was the start of sales of the PlayStation 5: chaos, delays, scarcity and resellers
Today in Russia, as in most of the rest of the world, official sales of the new generation PlayStation 5 game console, presented by Sony last September, began. The official cost of the regular version of the console with a Blu-ray drive is 47 thousand rubles, the digital version without a drive is estimated at 38 thousand rubles. As expected, the novelty was quickly sold out, while never appearing in retail stores.
As it became known earlier, the console could be purchased only by pre-order and only through the online stores of the company’s partners. There were no set-top boxes in physical retail stores on the day of release. Sony made this decision to keep players, suppliers, and employees safe from the coronavirus. Instead, the manufacturer offered to place an order online.
According to Russian media reports, the largest Russian retailers reported high demand for the PlayStation 5. For example, M.Video.Eldorado, the day before the start of sales, noted that the consoles were already in Russia. As soon as they arrive at the warehouse of the network, they will begin to be sent to everyone who pre-ordered them.
One of the largest Russian online retailers, Ozon, also noted the high demand for set-top boxes and reported that all consoles available for the pre-order period were purchased. They also added that more than 78% of pre-orders in the online store were in the regions. The most popular version was a set-top box with a floppy drive – it accounted for 68% of pre-orders. At the same time, some buyers who pre-ordered the console complained that they did not receive the pre-ordered product. In response, the store representatives report that some part of the first batch of consoles has been delayed at Russian customs, so the consoles will be delivered later.
The federal network of retail stores DNS also reported on the start of sales of the PlayStation 5. The company indicated that most orders for the regular version of the game console with a floppy drive have already been shipped by region. At the same time, it is reported that the supply of the digital version of the PS5 is being delayed. The retailer expects the PS5 Digital Edition to arrive in its warehouse from the supplier any day. The store should receive the Dual Sense game controllers for PS5 this week, the start of sales of the rest of the accessories for the console will be somewhat delayed.
On the official PlayStation Russia Twitter channel, many users who pre-ordered the console complained that their local stores had postponed the delivery time of their purchase to a later date, in some cases indefinitely. For example, one of the users provided a screenshot of an email with the following content:
Meanwhile, some of the set-top boxes received by early pre-order buyers have already begun to appear on Russian secondary trading platforms. For example, on Avito you can find advertisements for the sale of a new PlayStation 5 with a Blu-ray drive at absurdly inflated prices, up to 300 thousand rubles per offer. Interestingly, there are no real announcements on the sale of the digital version of the PlayStation 5 on the same site, which again speaks in favor of the fact that this version of the console has not yet arrived in Russia or has arrived in very limited quantities. At the moment, there have been only a few ads in which sellers offer to outbid pre-orders for this version of the game console. Prices range from 40 to 120 thousand rubles. Also, openly fraudulent ads began to appear on Avito, in which sellers offer to buy a game console much cheaper than its official cost.
