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Themem

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 15, 2020
18
8
Bristol
Hi all, still trying to purchase a Xbox series X and yet still Out of stock or more than the £450 price they are meant to be!?

So frustrating! It can't still be related to Covid can it?

Tesco is not advertising anymore

Currys is out of stock

this site is try to sell at £649!

and Game is out of stock also
 

Themem

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 15, 2020
18
8
Bristol
I just don't understand how they are unable to provide these? surely they know the fan base, market need for them is huge?
 

Ethosik

Contributor
Oct 21, 2009
8,144
7,120
COVID, Chip shortage (which I hear now might slip to sometime in 2023), and scalpers. I know a lot of people that just ended up buying from scalpers. I even have my parents, brother, and all my friends searching and still nothing :(
 

maflynn

macrumors Haswell
May 3, 2009
73,682
43,740
but how is the chip shortage taking 2 years to catch up?
Who knows, but the fact of the matter is, these shortages are being felt across many industries. The auto industry has stockpiled countless cars/trucks waiting for chips.

As with so many things in life, its just not the shortage, but scalpers. As long as there's high demand, and they're able to sell them for a premium, the average consumer will find it very difficult to snag one.
 

Eggtastic

macrumors 65816
Jun 9, 2009
1,052
702
NJ
Download the hot stock app. You can select which stores you wish to be notified when they get stock. It took me 10 months of trying but I finally got one through best buy. You have to be quick though (being logged into the store's app / website so you can check out quicker).

If you have twitter, give mattswider a follow and turn on notifications for his tweets (hotstock app is sometimes quicker than he is).

Chip shortage will be around well into next year. Also with the holidays on the horizon demand is only going to increase unfortunately.
 
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Washac

macrumors 68030
Jul 2, 2006
2,529
132
Got mine from Simply Games here in the UK for little over £600 but that is because it came with three games an extra controller, a headset, two rechargable battery packs and a y recharging cable.
I just added my interest in one on their website, in two two weeks they made me the pack offer.
 
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44267547

Cancelled
Jul 12, 2016
37,642
42,495
Who knows, but the fact of the matter is, these shortages are being felt across many industries. The auto industry has stockpiled countless cars/trucks waiting for chips.

As with so many things in life, its just not the shortage, but scalpers. As long as there's high demand, and they're able to sell them for a premium, the average consumer will find it very difficult to snag one.
Man, the scalpers are straight savage. Before I could find my Xbox, I did look at prices on eBay ($200 over MSRP), and some scalpers weren’t too unreasonable, but the key to beating them, is you just don’t give them your business. My PlayStation I found early on with no issue.

IGN had an article about a week ago, somebody from the tech industry said that we can expect console shortages leading into 2023, because they just don’t have the necessary materials to build them in a reasonable time frame. I think a lot of gamers are fine waiting, simply because there’s no real massive titles, with 2022 likely show-casing more material.
 

09872738

Cancelled
Feb 12, 2005
1,270
2,125
Man, the scalpers are straight savage. Before I could find my Xbox, I did look at prices on eBay ($200 over MSRP), and some scalpers weren’t too unreasonable, but the key to beating them, is you just don’t give them your business.
☝? This! And I‘d love if the big retailers (Amazon, …) would set up waiting lists. First come, first served. When the PS 4 came out it could be reserved like 9 months in advance
 
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maflynn

macrumors Haswell
May 3, 2009
73,682
43,740
but the key to beating them, is you just don’t give them your business. My PlayStation I found early on with no issue.
There is no beating them. I get what your saying but at the end of the day, if you want the product bad enough and are willing to pay for the premium then why not.

Sounds like I'm justifying the actions, and I guess I am, because I did just that. I paid about a hundred or two hundred over MRSP for my Xbox X. Now I was trying to get it the normal way and I was failing left and right dedicating more and more effort and time. For me time is money and it was just easier to get this by way of eBay and be done with the frustrating effort of trying to jump on the orders once they opened up.

Then there's the scalping that retailers do, I'm not sure if they were (or are) doing it on the xbox, but it seems they're doing it for the GPUs and even cars, where they may have the product in stock but you have to pay a fee or some premium over msrp. Again, its not fair or right but if you want it bad enough ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 

44267547

Cancelled
Jul 12, 2016
37,642
42,495
There is no beating them. I get what your saying but at the end of the day, if you want the product bad enough and are willing to pay for the premium then why not.
Sure there is. People vote with their wallets all the time. Is there a select group of people that probably are willing to pay a premium for something that they can’t have right away? Absolutely. But gamers are savvy, they know that if there’s nothing really pending in terms of massive titles, that _dramatically_ slows the hype down to have these consoles.

I admit, I’m not a patient person, and I typically have over paid in the past for Apple products, consoles, heck.. even cars. But I’m not the norm, and I feel that in these economic conditions and with the gaming industry really at a halt for the most part with titles not really showing anything prosperous until late 2022, there’s really no need to buy these consoles, and scalpers know that, but why not try to capitalize on a constrained product, am I right?

Like @09872738 mentioned above, it would be great if retailers could put you on a waiting list, something like if you put down a deposit on the console, they call you based on the order received. But for many reasons, that won’t happen.
 

maflynn

macrumors Haswell
May 3, 2009
73,682
43,740
People vote with their wallets all the time
Exactly, and I chose to buy now instead of struggling and failing. I'm like 99% sure that my mentality is the majority in this case, so again, there is no beating them, not when they have something that people want and people are will to pay a premium

But gamers are savvy, they know that if there’s nothing really pending in terms of massive titles, that _dramatically_ slows the hype down to have these consoles.
Gamers are people and the fact is that scalpers are getting away with selling these at a premium and GPUs shows that gamers are not willing to wait and are in fact buying them. I'm a gamer, and I'm savvy and yet I bought an xBox X on eBay.

it would be great if retailers could put you on a waiting list
I agree, and I'm sure there are other mechanisms to fight against those bots from snatching up consoles but it doesn't seem too many retailers really care to do something - For many retailers its a single item amongst hundreds if not thousands and they probably don't see any value in spending money on a product that they're not having any problems selling
 

44267547

Cancelled
Jul 12, 2016
37,642
42,495
Exactly, and I chose to buy now instead of struggling and failing. I'm like 99% sure that my mentality is the majority in this case, so again, there is no beating them, not when they have something that people want and people are will to pay a premium


Gamers are people and the fact is that scalpers are getting away with selling these at a premium and GPUs shows that gamers are not willing to wait and are in fact buying them. I'm a gamer, and I'm savvy and yet I bought an xBox X on eBay.


I agree, and I'm sure there are other mechanisms to fight against those bots from snatching up consoles but it doesn't seem too many retailers really care to do something - For many retailers its a single item amongst hundreds if not thousands and they probably don't see any value in spending money on a product that they're not having any problems selling
I think in the end, if someone is satisfied for what they paid for the product and it gives them the enjoyment they wanted out of it, that’s all that matters. I still think it’s insane to see the shortages with consoles that are leading into 2022, and we’re not even into the holiday season yet.

It’s kind of funny, if you actually call the retailers in my area, like Target, Best Buy, Walmart, there’s an automated message that says immediately when the call is connected…”Please, do not ask us what we have in stock for Xbox or PlayStation Consoles, we cannot provide you that information.”

Hahahahaha. I can only imagine how many teenagers probably ignore that prompt and still ask what they have for stock.
 

maflynn

macrumors Haswell
May 3, 2009
73,682
43,740
I still think it’s insane to see the shortages
I don't disagree, and the fact that scalpers (and bitcoin miners for GPUs) are using bots to buy vast quantities, is simply unfair, but life is unfair, and I can either just try to wait and lose out in enjoying the console, or pay a premium. In my case it wasn't terribly high, but it was a premium nonetheless.

The fact of the matter is both technology and business indifference has caused this and there's nothing we as consumers can do, since most of us are not willing to stop using scalpers.
 

44267547

Cancelled
Jul 12, 2016
37,642
42,495
I don't disagree, and the fact that scalpers (and bitcoin miners for GPUs) are using bots to buy vast quantities, is simply unfair, but life is unfair, and I can either just try to wait and lose out in enjoying the console, or pay a premium. In my case it wasn't terribly high, but it was a premium nonetheless.

The fact of the matter is both technology and business indifference has caused this and there's nothing we as consumers can do, since most of us are not willing to stop using scalpers.
_Whoever is reading this post, there is a caveat with bots._

Most bots can order consoles within 60 seconds or less, but what I found out from some retailers, is that the ‘buyers’ order is sometimes canceled or never picked up, and then they automatically re-stock the console back online within two hours. So in the case of if somebody saw an XSX/PS5 in stock from XYZ retailer and it was out-of-stock in less than a minute, re-check within two hours, because if the item was canceled/canceled payment, it’s stock is re-established in the back into the system.

{My source was a Best Buy manager when I was in the search for a PS5 last year.}
 
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