I had hoped the quite frankly rampant scalping activity on PS5s would have ended by now. Alas, the latest shipment to Argos sold out before they were even available officially. An organised scalping group found out a link to purchase the consoles before they could even be put onto the website properly. Hope nobody was counting on that restock to finally own one.
This is the problem when stocks are so limited. Scalpers always show up to ruin the party. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for entrepreneurship, but when you start charging £800 for one PS5 that’s when it’s getting silly.
I’m glad that gaming is becoming more and more popular as a hobby. For one, it gives me a lot to write about it, but people can never help themselves when there’s money to be made. This behaviour is pricing families and low income households out of the next generation of gaming. I can only dream of owning a PS5 at the moment, and games are my job.
So what can be done? For one, someone needs to plug the leak at Argos before this happens again. Sony may also want to consider how much stock it is releasing at any given time. Releasing such small numbers of stock is just asking for trouble. Perhaps if they released more in one batch, this would mean scalpers would have less opportunity to corner the market.
Aside from that there isn’t much more to be done than wait for the vultures to stop circling. Eventually people will grow bored of waiting for the PS5 and refuse to pay the exorbitant mark up a scalper will charge. They’ll give up and slink back into the shadows, looking for the next big thing to prey on.
So, check back in November. Maybe then the prices will be back to retail.
Comments