PS5 pre-orders are being canceled as a result of retailers taking more pre-orders than their supply. This month, PlayStation makers Sony announced the PS5 price and the PS5 release date. The moment it did this, retailers — such as GameStop, Amazon, Walmart, GAME, EB Games, and Best Buy — immediately began to take pre-orders, and it looks like most of them took more pre-orders than they should. In addition to Amazon sending out emails warnings pre-orderers they may not get a console at launch, GameStop Ireland has warned some of its pre-order customers they won’t get their console until 2021. It doesn’t end there though.
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VGC reports that UK retailer ShopTo will not be able to fulfill all of its pre-orders unless some customers begin to cancel their pre-orders. In other words, like other retailers, they don’t seem very confident they will have enough stock to meet demand, which begs the question: why are they taking pre-orders before they know how much stock they will have and what their shipping resources will be?
It’s only September 29. The PS5 isn’t releasing until November 12, which is to say these are the early birds getting out early as early birds do. More and more retailers are going to run into this issue. Whether it leads to canceling pre-orders or delaying delivery, the result is essentially the same thing. PlayStation players are getting pre-orders to ensure they have the console at launch. If it arrives weeks later, that hardly counts as fulfilling a pre-order.
If Amazon is anticipating stock and shipping issues, then it’s safe to assume every retailer is about to have the same issue, as Amazon likely has more stock than any other retailer, and it certainly has the greatest shipping resources.
Unfortunately, none of this is very surprising, as it happened with the PS4. And it’s going to happen with the Xbox Series X, because it happens with most modern console releases. And everyone knows this, yet retailers continue to ignore this reality to get that pre-order bump on their books.
The PS5 is set to release worldwide on November 12, priced at $400 or $500, depending on what version of the console you cop.
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