I don't understand how to get a PS5 legitimately.

Pilgrimzero

Pilgrimzero

Member
The last 2 days, I've had alerts on my phone set up for various stores selling PS5s. I've seen alerts for Target, Gamestop, and Amazon.

In one I got into digital line and got nothing. Another was just sold out 2 seconds in. And on another I added to cart but it was gone before I could actually check out (which was a matter of seconds)

They sell out almost immediately.

How are people legitimately getting one without resorting to scalper prices?
 
Pilgrimzero said:
The last 2 days, I've had alerts on my phone set up for various stores selling PS5s. I've seen alerts for Target, Gamestop, and Amazon.

In one I got into digital line and got nothing. Another was just sold out 2 seconds in. And on another I added to cart but it was gone before I could actually check out (which was a matter of seconds)

They sell out almost immediately.

How are people legitimately getting one without resorting to scalper prices?
Click to expand...

I was able to get both my XSX and PS5 through BestBuy after being alerted by the HotStock app. They have implemented a pretty good anti-bot system to make sure a select few are not gobbling up all the units. In both cases, however, Best Buy shipped the consoles to a store and I had to drive there to pick it up. Something to keep in mind if there isn't a Best Buy near by.
 
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Pilgrimzero said:
The last 2 days, I've had alerts on my phone set up for various stores selling PS5s. I've seen alerts for Target, Gamestop, and Amazon.

In one I got into digital line and got nothing. Another was just sold out 2 seconds in. And on another I added to cart but it was gone before I could actually check out (which was a matter of seconds)

They sell out almost immediately.

How are people legitimately getting one without resorting to scalper prices?
Click to expand...
I camped 2 of them out on bestbuy.com on the night when Sony opened up the pre orders earlier than they were supposed too. Got a digital and a physical one day 1. Kept the physical one for myself and gave digital to my nephew/his dad

As for my other friends, one got ucky in Q1 of 2021, another one sniped one with me same night. I still have 2 or so friends who need it and can't get it.
 
Discord stock hunter group.

Learn patterns for when retailers usually add stock.

Make sure all of your retailer websites are logged in with up to date shipping and card info.

Be willing to buy an over priced bundle. Stand alone consoles are what the bots target.
 
I got mine through GameStop at launch. GS still gets them occasionally, but you pretty much need to find out about it before hand AND get there super early, or even camp out the night before.

Demand greatly surpasses supply. Without extreme luck, you'll have to make some sort of sacrifice to get one - keep searching for shipments before they happen and camp out or pay over MSRP to the scalpers.

Otherwise, just keep waiting until supply catches up. You likely have, at least, another full year before that happens though.
 
Pilgrimzero said:
The last 2 days, I've had alerts on my phone set up for various stores selling PS5s. I've seen alerts for Target, Gamestop, and Amazon.

In one I got into digital line and got nothing. Another was just sold out 2 seconds in. And on another I added to cart but it was gone before I could actually check out (which was a matter of seconds)

They sell out almost immediately.

How are people legitimately getting one without resorting to scalper prices?
Click to expand...
You and me both!!! Been trying for over a year.

AND A BIG F U To all the "I GOT MINE ITS EASY" assholes who flex like its some simple shit. Maybe if you spend your life building bots or on websites 24x7 , but not to people who work and just go off alerts. Go to get one in the shopping cart and hit "checkout" only to be told time and again "no longer in stock.." Then why the f did you put it in my shopping cart. Don't these stores like amazon and walmart take it out of inventory electronically before selling?
How can they put in my cart if they don't actually have it. ITs bullshit!!!!

Also they really need to get like EVGA and have a queue. Where you sign up, pay and wait. I got a 3060ti that way. Took 8 months but i at least got it stress free.
Sony gives random emails but the last one i got they gave it on a sunday night and i had 8 hours to get it. I didn't see the email until i was done work on monday and by that time too late. Who doesn't give 24 hours at least..wtf...

Meanwhile, I was able to get a switch oled 5 days before xmas on amazon, with no hassell. I got it and delvered xmas eve. Loving my new switch upgrade. SMT5 and dying light look amazing on the screen (gf got me those for xmas).

So yeah getting a ps5 sucks and I will keep bitching about it until sony does something to stop scalpers , bots and shitty greedy stores from not caring.


Oh wtf is up with gamestop, bestbuy,, walmart having a $200 premium membership where those people get first dibs... You know who has those accounts rich scalpers. ..F them!
 
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Pilgrimzero said:
How are people legitimately getting one without resorting to scalper prices?
Click to expand...
in my case, scripts.
I concentrated on 2 shops and automated the buying for that specific article on a boring afternoon.
Got quite a few PS5 so far.

I think it`s like playing the lottery trying to catch one manually, still.
 
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It took me around 8-9 tries before i finally got mine from a Best Buy drop. You have to be persistent and expect to lose everytime.....then when you suddenly get lucky and score one, it makes the victory even better.
 
I was able to get 2-3 without much issue. I sold them all but it wasn't too hard and I wasn't even trying. Just saw it come in stock and bought it, multiple times at that. That Wario twitter made it super easy. Follow them if you aren't already and have notifications on. Gotta act quick once it comes online but otherwise not too difficult
 
Pilgrimzero said:
The last 2 days, I've had alerts on my phone set up for various stores selling PS5s. I've seen alerts for Target, Gamestop, and Amazon.

In one I got into digital line and got nothing. Another was just sold out 2 seconds in. And on another I added to cart but it was gone before I could actually check out (which was a matter of seconds)

They sell out almost immediately.

How are people legitimately getting one without resorting to scalper prices?
Click to expand...
You've only been trying two days, it took me two months. Keep trying, also sign up for PlayStation Directs, that's the best way to get one.
 
The situation is frustrating but it seems impossible to beat the bots/scalpers without either getting lucky or wasting a lot of time. Time is money and I value my time at over $100/hour. Paying a scalper $750-$800 for a PS5 sucks, but it beats wasting so much time trying to get one at retail IMO.

This will be unpopular here, but if you really want a PS5, I say just bite the bullet and pay the markup and get one. There's no end in site to the supply shortages.
 
I get mine the old fashioned way:

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ehh afte rmonths of alert site nonsense i got a disk systme of ebay for $700 .. not a horrible privce but not great either.
 
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1) Follow Wario64 on Twitter and be ready immediately. Have all your stuff logged in and ready to go.
2) Repeat step 1.

I just got my 3rd PS5 this year, all of them sent to friends who were working and didn't have time due to how their job operates. None of them paid scalper prices. My Series X I got for the heck of it. That will be here tomorrow.

It's frustrating but you can definitely get one without eBay or FB marketplace.
 
Just looked at ebay, tons of them available, dunno what problem people have... I've been hearing the whole year how 80-90$ per game is supposedly not an issue at all but paying 150$ for a console once somehow is an unacceptable dealbreaker...
 
Your best bet to get one fast is to physically go to a store as they regularly get shipments in, although it could be as little as 2 or 3 at a time. Ask the sales person how often they get them in and try to get friendly with one of them.
 
Shadowstar39 said:
You and me both!!! Been trying for over a year.

AND A BIG F U To all the "I GOT MINE ITS EASY" assholes who flex like its some simple shit. Maybe if you spend your life building bots or on websites 24x7 , but not to people who work and just go off alerts. Go to get one in the shopping cart and hit "checkout" only to be told time and again "no longer in stock.." Then why the f did you put it in my shopping cart. Don't these stores like amazon and walmart take it out of inventory electronically before selling?
How can they put in my cart if they don't actually have it. ITs bullshit!!!!

Also they really need to get like EVGA and have a queue. Where you sign up, pay and wait. I got a 3060ti that way. Took 8 months but i at least got it stress free.
Sony gives random emails but the last one i got they gave it on a sunday night and i had 8 hours to get it. I didn't see the email until i was done work on monday and by that time too late. Who doesn't give 24 hours at least..wtf...

Meanwhile, I was able to get a switch oled 5 days before xmas on amazon, with no hassell. I got it and delvered xmas eve. Loving my new switch upgrade. SMT5 and dying light look amazing on the screen (gf got me those for xmas).

So yeah getting a ps5 sucks and I will keep bitching about it until sony does something to stop scalpers , bots and shitty greedy stores from not caring.


Oh wtf is up with gamestop, bestbuy,, walmart having a $200 premium membership where those people get first dibs... You know who has those accounts rich scalpers. ..F them!
Click to expand...
I got mine at launch. It wasn't easy though, I had to camp out overnights just to buy a preorder ticket.

If I hadn't gotten one, I would have paid whatever was necessary to a scalper. I hate scalpers too, but it is what it is. No way I would miss out on a full year or two of the PS5/Series X life cycles out of principle or to save a couple hundreds dollars.
 
here in the UK I just walked in to my local Sainsbury's on launch weekend and bought one for myself and one for my buddy. The perks of living in a relatively small / remote town with very few gamers, lol.

To be honest there are always a few here and there at local stores - just keep checking your supermarkets and get lucky?
 
Shadowstar39 said:
You and me both!!! Been trying for over a year.

AND A BIG F U To all the "I GOT MINE ITS EASY" assholes who flex like its some simple shit. Maybe if you spend your life building bots or on websites 24x7 , but not to people who work and just go off alerts. Go to get one in the shopping cart and hit "checkout" only to be told time and again "no longer in stock.." Then why the f did you put it in my shopping cart. Don't these stores like amazon and walmart take it out of inventory electronically before selling?
How can they put in my cart if they don't actually have it. ITs bullshit!!!!

Also they really need to get like EVGA and have a queue. Where you sign up, pay and wait. I got a 3060ti that way. Took 8 months but i at least got it stress free.
Sony gives random emails but the last one i got they gave it on a sunday night and i had 8 hours to get it. I didn't see the email until i was done work on monday and by that time too late. Who doesn't give 24 hours at least..wtf...

Meanwhile, I was able to get a switch oled 5 days before xmas on amazon, with no hassell. I got it and delvered xmas eve. Loving my new switch upgrade. SMT5 and dying light look amazing on the screen (gf got me those for xmas).

So yeah getting a ps5 sucks and I will keep bitching about it until sony does something to stop scalpers , bots and shitty greedy stores from not caring.


Oh wtf is up with gamestop, bestbuy,, walmart having a $200 premium membership where those people get first dibs... You know who has those accounts rich scalpers. ..F them!
Click to expand...
Now I wouldn't say it was easy but I really didn't put that much effort in when I got mine. I was at work I grabbed my phone and looked and Wario64's Twitter and saw they would be available soon from Gamestop. I didn't even have the Pro membership at the time. I logged on while still working. Glanced at it every few minutes to make sure I was ready. Then I went to the site and basically battled with it for 30 minutes off and on while still working. After going through a repeated motion of Item in cart, item not in cart, duplicate item in cart. I finally managed to get one. It's not terribly hard but it was frustrating. I had no bots. I didn't have anyone help me. I wasn't a scalper, I just wanted one, and I got it. Some tips to note of that I could have done to make it easier for me was don't trust the site. It will sometimes say it's not in the cart when it is. Refresh if you have to. Don't believe when it says out of stock sometimes it's lying.
 
You can get one pretty easily at GameStop if you don't mind the bundle. I was able to get myself a second from Walmart a couple of weeks ago without the membership subscription. If you can get one anywhere within $200 of retail plus tax I would jump on it. I'd say $700 all in is not bad because things are starting to get bad again with closings and all.
I'd go GameStop bundle over scalper though.
 
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Spamming sites when they go up, make sure you are logged in with all payment info updated before you even try.
 
I'm lucky in that I can get one through my employer anytime. That's probably the best way; through contacts. But here in Germany, Mediamarkt has been selling them more and more often.
 
It's really not that difficult I've bought 5 in the last year for myself and family.

Never had an issue getting one once I set out to try.

Just set up a few alerts and waited a few days max.
 
ZywyPL said:
Just looked at ebay, tons of them available, dunno what problem people have... I've been hearing the whole year how 80-90$ per game is supposedly not an issue at all but paying 150$ for a console once somehow is an unacceptable dealbreaker...
Click to expand...

People don't want to support scalpers
 
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Your "alerts" are useless spam, OP. Fighting bots is near impossible. If you really want to try your luck doing it "by hand", you should use a browser plugin like distill. Much faster and more reliable than "alerts".
 
Pilgrimzero said:
The last 2 days, I've had alerts on my phone set up for various stores selling PS5s. I've seen alerts for Target, Gamestop, and Amazon.

In one I got into digital line and got nothing. Another was just sold out 2 seconds in. And on another I added to cart but it was gone before I could actually check out (which was a matter of seconds)

They sell out almost immediately.

How are people legitimately getting one without resorting to scalper prices?
Click to expand...
get from less known sites.
 
I signed up to a dedicated PS5 stock discord server, on that they had drop predictions based on previous drops and 'insider' tips. It has dedicated chat that you can discuss with the community and mods about when stock would drop, and on pins they had a timetable with dates and the usual times they drop per store, plus they would mark the store that was expected the drop that day with a colour indicator based on the chance it would actually drop. For example I got mine from Amazon, saw a day prior it was going to drop within the next 2 days between 8-10am. The second day I got up about 7 and saw the severity was on high alert so I logged into Amazon, then I got the notification from discord that stock was in, checked out and got next day delivery. Honestly it's crazy really that you have to resort to this to get a console but after a week of joining the server I had one. Absolute shambles lol
 
I got my ps5 at launch through sams club, xbsx through target in store pickup following wario back in February and a 3080ti following wario when Best Buy had a drop for online pickup back in October. No bundle bs or scalper prices for me.
 
i just had Wario64 alerts, and got one off the GameStop website a year ago.

I had struck out a bunch of times and just missed a couple other opportunities. So i finally caved and bought an expensive ass GameStop bundle
I could've gotten a Gamestop bundle on maybe 2 other occasions but i would talk myself out of it, because it was a stupid amount. But eventually just said screw it
 
Have it tough over there. I've linked friend to ps5 drops so have had opportunity to buy lots. Sometimes Takes up to several hours to sell out and sites release staggered on same day.
So if first sells out just wait for next to list theirs. In nz.
Have even seen series x with discount.
 
SlimeGooGoo said:
Why the hurry though?
Console manufacturers will keep releasing their games on old gen for quite a while
Click to expand...

Because people want to play the new games in their best possible quality without long loading screens and sub 30fps

I got mine because of the pre-order launch screw up with them doing it early so bots couldn't catch them in time. I got mine off amazon at the lat minute
 
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I own 2 PS5 and was able to get another 5 for friends which I sold to them at cost.
I just follow Lbabinz on Twitter. Alerts on and able to get it.
It must be easy because Oh Canada!
 
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