A new restock of the PlayStation 5 took place today at Best Buy, but unlike past sale opportunities at the retail chain, this restock wasn’t available to all customers. Specifically, Best Buy opted to lock this new release of the PS5 behind a paywall and only would allow select consumers to pick it up. While this isn’t something that Best Buy has historically done very much, it might be an indication that such a move will only become more common over time.ย
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After releasing its new stock of the PS5 on its website today, customers quickly found that they weren’t able to actually buy Sony’s next-gen console through Best Buy unless they were a “Totaltech” member. In recent weeks, this Totaltech membership is something new that Best Buy has rolled out that comes with a variety of different benefits at the storefront. In this instance, one of those benefits just happened to be that members could buy the PS5, whereas non-members were left out in the cold.
The problem with Totaltech compared to other store memberships, however, is that it’s quite costly. Best Buy charges $200 per year for those who want to look to join the Totaltech program. So essentially, if you wanted to buy a PS5 today at Best Buy, you would’ve had to tack on an additional $200 in addition to the base price of the console itself.ย
As you might expect, social media was quickly filled with a number of responses from customers who were angry about this new development with Best Buy. “Fu** you Best Buy for making people pay an extra $200 in order to [be] able to purchase a PS5,” one userย expressed on social media after the restock went live. “I was counting on Best Buy to be the last good retailer, [to be honest]. I’d rather just give the money directly to Sony so they get the most profit from me for a PS5,” another customerย went on to say. As a whole, it’s hard to know if this is something that Best Buy will continue to do moving forward, but it sounds like many are instead going to start looking to other retail chains to now help them buy the hardware.ย
How do you feel about Best Buy beginning to put new sales of the PS5 behind a paywall in this manner? And do you think it’s something that the retail chain will continue to do well into the future? Let me know your thoughts either down in the comments or on Twitter at @MooreMan12.
