They Both Got Botched
You don’t need me to tell you that the PS5 pre-orders were a hot mess when they went live. I already wrote an entire article on the situation, although to be fair to Sony you can’t really blame them if other companies decide to break street date, and with 2020 making us wish for the simpler time when 2016 was the worst year in living memory it was a relatively small blip on the radar. Of course, Microsoft couldn’t help but make an easy dig at Sony’s misfortune but hindsight, much like the answer to the question “In what year” as asked in pub quizzes fifty years from now, is 2020.
Pre-order ? September 22
Worldwide launch in 36 countries ? November 10
Hype ? 9000+
(don’t worry – we’ll let you know the exact time pre-orders start for you soon) pic.twitter.com/SLUrrtszyN
— Xbox (@Xbox) September 17, 2020
Unfortunately, letting people know the exact time the preorders went live did nothing to alleviate the obvious problem – and one that caused people endless issues with Walmart, Amazon, EB Games, and any number of other online retailers if they got word of the PS5 pre-orders going live sooner than anticipated: traffic.
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Amazon crashed. Gamestop implemented a queue system and asked people not to refresh the page. Even Microsoft’s official page was overloaded and, unlike the PlayStation, they didn’t even have the excuse that the street date was broken: People were given plenty of warning and once again the same issues surfaced.
Like the PS5, there’s also been the issue of scalpers immediately listing their pre-orders on eBay for thousands of dollars, taking advantage of the scarcity to turn a profit. Xbox Live’s Director of Programming, Larry Hryb, took to twitter to address the situation.
We're doing all we can to make as many consoles available as possible and that the process is fair. Thanks for being patient! https://t.co/LrstVpSYCp (2/2)
— Larry Hryb (@majornelson) September 21, 2020
Hopefully for all Xbox players, there’ll be plenty of consoles available to ensure that as many people as possible get the Series S/X into their hands as soon as possible.
Did you manage to secure a pre-order? Let us know down in the comments.