Short Thought: Limited Edition Consoles

As was confirmed in the beginning of the month, Sony recently put up its limited edition console up for pre-order in the UK. Those in the US have to wait until it’s officially available on 24th of August before they can get their orders in.

The pre-order release was nothing short of a disaster in the UK. Only a few retailers had the console available: ShopTo, Currys, Very, Smyths, GAME and Amazon. Sales were supposed to open at 10am across them all, but is that what happened? NOPE!

Amazon had a technical glitch which meant pre-orders were open at a reported 7am. Later in the day, they cancelled all pre-orders because it wasn’t fair on those who had waited until 10am – perfectly reasonable in my book, but they then had to move the opening of the pre-orders to 10am on Wednesday the 15th. This would prove to be your last chance to get one if you’re in the UK.

The other retailers had the usual network issues just as pre-orders opened. ShopTo went down, Smyth’s went down, Very didn’t even have it listed on their site until someone on Twitter managed to get the URL from support staff and shared it out. Currys ended up overselling by a huge amount so sent out mass cancellations (after taking payment!), including to myself. GAME decided not to do online orders until slightly later, around 11am, instead reserving about two to three consoles per store and asking people to go in store to put their order in.

Sony touted this release as “For the players”, but all this limited edition nonsense does is the exact opposite of the mantra that the company is adopting, instead it offers to those who have the time to sit on store websites at a specific time hammering the F5 key. And, as was shown by the sites going down, even that isn’t enough.

Luckily, I was able to nab one at Amazon’s second attempt after the disappointment of having my Curry’s order cancelled. At the time of writing, there are 111 listings on eBay of these consoles at hugely inflated prices (RRP is £449.99).

So it’s not even the players who have been able to buy one.