johnvboy

Even though the wired nature of Sony VR is not that much of an issue for the tech savvy, I would feel it has held the format back from reaching a much bigger portion of Sony PS4 customers, I feel if it had been wireless the adoption would have been higher.

Vr is a tough sell in the first place for the mass market, it's immersion which cuts you totally off from the real world is a great selling point, but at the same time the total detachment from your real world surroundings is still a barrier for many, this is before you start to address motion sickness etc.

@Flurpsel,

Looks very dodgy, and as we all know Sony will be losing money on he consoles at this price, but who knows.

One thing I do know is the whole thing five months or so in is a total shambles, and the newspaper articles about stock are just as bad, tipsters saying thousands of consoles on there way, when in reality it's probably very few, they say they have exact times, then say it could be any day at any time. Websites can't cope with the demand so they list stock at stupid times, but then state they have bot protection, yea right.

It's bad that after five months your easiest place to buy a PS5, without resorting to being chained to your P.C/Smartphone device, and having a lot of luck, is buying one off a scalper on E-bay.

Not of course the average price has shot down to around £600 but still £150 more than retail, so as it stands unless Sony actually get some serious stock to the U.K it will not get better anytime soon.

The whole thing is a total shambles, both Sony and Microsoft have not made anywhere near enough stock available, sure you can blame component shortages, but at the end of the day they are both in control of when their consoles launched, why not delay until the supply chains were in place at full capacity.

Scalpers and bots are also an issue, but the initial stock shortages are still to blame for this, as if there was enough stock available what would the point of buying consoles to scalp people be in the first pace.

@Netret0120,

Or Sony are not making enough consoles, funny how people were saying there were far more PS4 stock available at launch, only for this to be dismissed later, looks like a lot of consoles have been saved for the Chinese launch.

@deathaxe,

Totally agree with the fact the scalpers are going to saturate their own marketplace, we have seen this in the U.K with the Xbox Series X, it's very easy to pick one up between £500-£550, as there are around 3000 consoles listed on e-bay.

@si2525,

I do not need a PS5 at the moment and am happy to wait for stock to be more available, and it's very debatable to how much of an issue this is in the first place, but it's still wrong no matter what scale it's on.

@Robinsad,

So by this rule normal retailers should be able to do this as well?. i mean it's only a recommended retail price, so Game could sell the base console for £800, would you be happy with this?

@si2525,

So we can't discuss this because there are not scalpers on here?

@Robinsad,

The scalpers and people like you trying to justify this is part of the problem, the scalpers are contributing to making the console more scarce than it already is, they are then taking advantage of the demand they helped create in the first place.

@si2525,

I do not suggest it's every console, but it's still enough of a problem to warrant discussion, and I can't really side with the scalpers on this.

@UltimateOtaku91,

Amazon did not allow people to resell the console on their site for the first three months, of course you can't expect Flea-bay to do the same.

@TowaHerschel7,

Not the same thing, as the item you mentioned does not have a value in the traditional sense, it will sell for what somebody is willing to pay for it.

The PS5 is a current item that has a retail price, and it's been in short supply since launch, greedy people on the internet are taking advantage of that fact.

If the console is readily available and people still choose to pay more on e-bay, then that's a different matter.

Putting words into people's mouths is stupid.

@si2525,

Any instance of scalping is wrong, no matter how many consoles it is, any move to justify it is wrong too.

@Robinsad,

As this would not solve the problem, you would have to stop the console being listed on the auction side, and only allow buy it now.

People trying to justify things but they can't, you can blame the retailers, Sony, and customers for paying high prices on e-bay etc, but in the end of the day these scalpers are making a decision to charge people over the odds, for a product that the customers can't buy in a level marketplace, that's in great demand.

Scalpers use bots to buy consoles, if that's a single console from each retailer it's still wrong, as each and every instance takes an opportunity away from a genuine customer, the use of bots is unfair as the normal customer can't compete.

E-bay could help with this by not allowing the console to be put on sale or auction for above retail, there would be then very little reason for the scalpers to buy lots of consoles.

@NEStalgia,

Must be some manufacturing contract agreement, as Sony must realize these consoles are needed in the U.S and Europe much more.

@Woogy,

I don't think the Xbox is such an issue in the U.K, as there are 3200 of them listed on e-bay, looks like the scalpers have saturated their own marketplace.

@Woogy,

Good point, I noticed Amazon are not allowing this practice, I guess that's why some call it Flea-bay.

Yes the photo of an actual console, and in the small print A4 picture of the console not an actual console, luckily most of these listings are being removed.

@billyboyblue666,

You tend to get to a saturation point on sites like e-bay, at the moment there are around 1000 PS5 consoles for sale pretty much all over £750, whereas there are 3200 Xbox Series X units on the site, and you can pick one up as low as £500, which is only £50 or so above the retail price. So as more and more PS5's are listed the prices will drop.

Of course if people keep on buying them and keep the levels to around a 1000 consoles or so, then this will go on for a while, and it's up to Sony to get more stock into the system as this will solve the issue with no need for legislation.

@gomersoul,

Good point, although that still does not remedy the fact there is no other option for people if they want a console, I mean if the sites were fair and you were all competing for stock in an equal manner then fine, but as it is a lot of stock of a very limited item is going to appear on e-bay and similar sites.

I think as somebody suggested a ban on selling above RRP for the first 6 months or so would be a simple fix, but the issues are also with online retail sites that have limited to no bot protection, and places like e-bay as well, if these guys did not allow for the sale of these items at insane prices there would be no issues either.

Over the last week sites have has stock but it's been impossible to check out items, Curry's had stock today but the site has crashed with a queue of over a 100,000 people, and there were people bragging about bots snagging 2000 consoles from the Game restock yesterday, although Game are looking into this and will be cancelling any suspicious orders.

Another good idea is for all sites to operate a ballot like system where you sign up to buy a console, they then hold a lottery type affair where everybody has an equal chance of getting a console, surely better than the almost impossible task of competing against bots.

Nice but pretty pointless as there is no 4K content,Even Blu-ray is only around 2k.