PS5 & X-BOX SX: A year Later - Gamers should be pissed off!

[RIP-Felix]

DISACLAIMER: This it like, just my opinion man! If you don't like it, I respect your right to express yourself...so long as you respect mine.

It's been over a year and I still haven't been blessed with good timing. Forgive my old stupid ass for not subscribing to restock alerts or resorting to paid bot buying groups for the privilege of paying full retail price. And it does, doesn't it - Feel like a privelege to pay "only" $500?

First, let me express how STUPID it is to feel privileged to pay the Launch price for a console that launched over a year ago. Call me old fashioned, but Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals, a year after launch, should be discounted. "But they are in high demand." "They're not available in stores." "There's a global parts shortage." Oh, and the most overused excuse..."the pandemic!"

Second, they're not sold in stores, online only. That method is incredibly unfair to people like me. I never know when restocks are coming and can't compete with the trigger fingers of a generation that grew up jacked into the web. I don't want to stop everything at the drop of a tweet, just to pay full retail price for a console that launched a year ago, having a 2ms window to buy. I have no problem on amazon.com buying a USB cable, but the moment there's demand from 10's of thousands of rabid gamer's willing to run up their credit card debt competing for a limited number of consoles, normal servers and Firefox doesn't cut it. I value my privacy and use browser extensions like Ghostery and UBlock origin that sometimes interfere with cookies needed to make a purchasing experience go smooth. Using chrome with it's big-brother-friendly default settings is 100% necessary, when you're competing to add to cart on an overloaded server. Hitting that refresh button over and over again shouldn't require me to give up on my values, but it's become ordinary - that's just what you have to do!

But WHY???

Why do they REFUSE to sell them in stores? It would solve all of this nonsense. Yes, I know recently the Halo infinate limited edition X-Box SX was sold in store at Best Buy. But was I the only one who found the timing inconvenient? Why did they do it on a Monday morning?

I'm not as young as I used to be and had to work Monday. I couldn't get the day off just to camp out at Best Buy for a video game console! I don't know where you work, buy that won't fly by my boss! A Saturday makes sense. People can begin camping out after work and won't have to work the weekend. Not only does that give you a chance to sleep off the camp-out, but also play some games before having to go to work on Monday! That's the way Black Friday worked when I was growing up! That's how it's supposed to work.

Sure, I get the pandemic excuse here. I mean if I were SONY or MS I'd be saying the same things. 'Why would we lower the price when they keep selling out? We don't control the price resellers list their consoles at. There is a global parts shortage and pandemic. Selling in stores with long lines makes social distancing difficult or impossible.' That last one is a solid argument, but that's a decision I should be able to make for myself. I can wear an N95, face shield, self contained HazMat suit if I effing want! Retailers can setup social distancing measures too. I don't get why they, be "they" retailers or whoever, remove the option from us (the customer)? Shouldn't we have the opportunity to get lucky and find a console in store? I find myself checking the electronics section at Wallmart, Target, and Best Buy every time I'm there, just in case there was a silent restock. I'd even pay full retail price for the convenience of buying in person, instead of enduring the hassle of competing for one online. I happend upon a SNES and NES classic just wondering by the electronics section. It's a small ritual I used to enjoy performing while vising the supermarket. But it's completely lost it's appeal. Now, I don't even bother with th electronics section. If I were to go by the switch games, I'd see a $60 price for a game that's been out for 4 years. And if there's ZERO chance of finding a PS5 or XBSX, the only thing I have to look forward to is a 2 for 1 sale on soap...FML!

 The one time there is an in store release it's was a random Monday. Had I not checked Twitter, I wouldn't have even known about it! In fact, this is why I joined Twitter, because I keep missing out on news like this. I HATE SOCIAL MEDIA! But I had to join to keep on top of updates like this. That's a failure of marketing, not some kind of grassroots gurella marking strategy. Whatever BS non-sense they try to spin it as! Regardless, I only saw this in my feed the morning of! It was too late for me to plan to take the day off by then. I can only assume this was by design, intended to be difficult. Heaven forbid we have a fair shot!

Instead they would pass out tickets (1/customer) at 7am...but that you HAD to wait around for the 10am open or they wouldn't hold on to it. So you couldn't come back later if you had to go to work. No, you had to wait all night, and most of the morning too. I got the message loud and clear. The timing said, "no working adults!" The price said, "no broke young people!" So who was this for? The only people who can do that are people without a regular 9-5, but who somehow have and extra $500 laying around...like resellers! Really limited demographic there. Maybe they were hoping to give scalpers COVID!

You better believe scalpers have no problem camping out for the chance to double their money. I See the Halo Infinite LE X-Box SX selling on e-bay for $1200. $1200 - $500 = A cool $700. Sure e-bay takes their fee, but it's worth loosing a little sleep if you're a resller.

But I want to get back to this point. Just because you can't get a console, doesn't mean it's rare or worth it's asking price! I would argue that the system has been manipulated to create scarcity and speculation. By slowly releasing consoles, small restocks at a time, SONY and MS are creating a reseller market! And the manner they, or their distributors, have chosen to release these consoles (online only) is easily exploited by bots reseller groups use to acquire large lots. The true price of the console is being set by speculation, not demand. That's why the price's aren't falling. Keeping supply low for as long as possible ensures SONY & MS will end up selling more consoles overall.  Speculation will cause consoles to sit on inventory shelves waiting to be resold, up until the bubble pops. Once all gamer's have either bought an overpriced console (either from the scalpers or SONY/MS) or lose interest and give up, resellers will be stuck with unsold inventory taking up space. It works out for SONY and MS, who will have sold WAY more consoles than they would have otherwise. And most of those consoles will have sold for full price, no discounts.

That's when I'll pick one up. Once the PS5 and XBSX is no longer relevant. Just like I am doing now with PS3 and XB360. That's what I'm playing now. It's not new, but it's new to me and cheap! I have plenty of games to play, so I can hold out. But you know who can't? Developers!

The biggest loser's in all of this are game developers who are not able to sell as many games as they would have otherwise. They only have a short amount of time to make their money back, so the sooner their gamer base has a console they can play the game on, the sooner they can sell it to them. All the people like me, who wait 10 years to buy the console and games used, are a missed opportunity for a sale that would help support their work. And I'm a working adult with the money to buy those games. I want to also. I just can't get my hands on the console! So I'm faced with the decision to buy the game for a console I can't get yet, or wait until I get one. The fact that some of these games become rare and appreciate in value, instead of getting cheaper with time, makes that decision even harder! Worse, because of all this I'm alienated...pissed off really! I want to support development of the games I like. But i'm about ready to say, eff'em all! Let them die!

Nothing about this is conducive to good game development or innovation. Devs can't take the chances they did during the X-Box, PS2, Dreamcast, and GC generation. They haven't since then. That has soured my taste for gaming in general. It caused me to wait to buy consoles and games, and that was back when we had the luxury of games and consoles that came down in price. The only reason I'm even interested in the overpriced PS5 and XBSX is for backwards compatibility and Games I want to support development of. They need it to have enough to offer gamers!

Nintendo somehow manages to look like the good guy in all of this. I was able to pay full price in a store...SHOCKER!!! The prices haven't come down, but availability is better. I just bought Metroid Dread because I love the series and want to support it's continued development. I have a lot of switch games that I haven't even opened yet, because I wanted to support development, and was afraid the price would go up...strange times we live in. But I can't justify doing this for a console I don't own yet.

Yeah, this thread is venting...it's spilled milk, sour grapes, hey you kid's get off my lawn. Deal with it!

[Draco1962]

Or "Suck it up, Buttercup!" :p 

i stopped with the Xbox One. As much as I am a Halo fanboy, I know eventially the franchise will outlive my console version.

Best of luck to you!

[tthurman]

I know the feeling, I just want a new GPU, but can't get one due to crypto. 

My HD-7950 held on for a long time, but just can't cut it with modern titles.  Finding (and paying 3X retail) a current GPU is just crazy, but I can't even snag one of those before they are gone.  I've resorted to watching Craigslist even, but they're gouging prices just as bad.  I'd settle for something used just to get by for a while, but 1070 and 1080's are even nuts!

 

[Draco1962]

Well the supply chain isn't impacting availability of the Atari VCS... and IT PLAYS PONG!