PlayStation 5: Launch Day Ordering Update

My attempts to purchase a PS5 began last night around 9pm Pacific or 12 eastern. When I could get the item in my cart which happened multiple times, I would not be able to actually purchase the product. I kept getting errors. This happened at Walmart, BestBuy and Target. At other times I would see the product and be forced into a devils bargain of choosing to pay through the nose for convenience, many sites are having it marked up far above retail by people who had purchased it just to resell. Websites like Amazon, Ebay and Stock X had the PS5 going from $850 up to $1900 and I can confirm that the $1900 one sold on Amazon because as of this writing they are showing no PS5 stock. Other sites had abusive package deals. On New Egg you had to buy it in a bundle with games or an extra controller and on Gamestop they bundled in NBA 2k and Spiderman Into a console bundle and forced you to purchase that way or not at all. I say all that to say this. We the consumer make a choice to support your platform as long as it supports us with great product. I would argue however that the decision made around distribution of this product although coming from a place of good intentions in the age of covid 19 is devoid of good results. We are being ripped off by corporate greed in the form of companies you work with taking advantage of the situation and means to upsell us and we are also having individuals use the circumstance of online only to use bots with scripts to purchase copies for resale at 4 times the original price. It would be nice if considering all of these facts you revised your decision to do online only sales. 1. The world is opening with or without you and we will be shopping in stores like Wallmart or Target for food and clothing anyway so there is no reason those places should have an online only distribution. Other locations as well should just be required to have covid guidelines in place which all of them do anyway to maintain social distancing. 2. Supporting the customer is not only frankly the right thing to do it is also the profitable thing to do. Do you think that person that spent 1900 on a PS5 console with one controller and no games wouldn’t have rather paid for a console and then spend the other 1300 (after taxes) on games and accessories that you made for him or her and their family to have fun playing or interacting with cameras, VG goggles , etc….I think the answer is clear. You are throwing away profit to bolster a system that does not benefit you or the consumer. That is not responsible it is in fact the opposite. I hope we can take the events of the day as a lesson learned and attempt to do things differently moving forward. Here is my suggestion. Take a tally of what your distribution will be for the year and use it to come up with a production estimate you can then divide among your retailers as a supply list. Then allow said retailers to place reservations for systems and collect full payment for them upfront. I know plenty of people would be happy to pay upfront and have a firm or even estimated date of when the item they purchased would arrive and not need to do any further interaction. This would allow you to maintain consideration for Covid 19 and by pre booking reservations people could be contacted individually for purchase they could not abuse online botting and the reservation could be limited to one per person making anyone attempting resale have a more difficult go of it. It would ensure social distancing would be followed and allow people to actually purchase the product in a fair manner. In addition if I were you I would not allow companies to sell your product during a shortage in bundle deals that are not consumer friendly if they refused I wouldn’t supply them with the product. We ultimately are supporting you and your product not them and their shady business practices. I think doing something along these lines would go a long way to improving the customer service experience and making it more agreeable to all. Thanks for the good games and good times. I know it is hard and you do not often get appreciation as much as consternation but I for one appreciate all the hard work that goes into what you do and thank you for all the long hours and hard work. I just want it to be appreciated by the fans and not manipulated into abusing them by people taking advantage of a poorly designed market strategy. Stay safe and thanks for taking the time to read this.