Here's some uplifting news for your Friday - PlayStation 5 consoles are no longer being prioritised as strongly by scalper bots as they have been in the past, so units should become more available and more affordable, though these effects likely won't be seen straight away.
You'll remember the scenes. Scalpers snapping up the console as soon as the shipments dropped in the latter months of 2020, using bots to skip ahead of the queues and checkout within seconds, and those same units would be scattered across second-hand sites for outrageous prices. Some groups defended their actions, saying that they were only trying to make ends meet like the rest of us in a precarious economic situation. "Yes, some families are gonna have to pay another £100, but what you don't think about is our members, they've got 30 consoles, they're making £100 on each one. And then they're making a good month's salary in a couple of days," explained one.
We simply can't get enough of this heartwarming moment where a woman surprised her husband with a PlayStation 5:
Will there be any respite? Well it looks like scalper bots are shifting away from the PlayStation 5 and are targeting expensive designer footwear now. Netacea is a cybersecurity company that addresses automated threats to businesses and its latest quarterly assessment of scalper bots, the top five most scalped items are the Yeezy Slide Bone, the Nike Dunk Panda Low, Panini Optic Football Trading Cards, the PlayStation 5 and the Jordan 1 Retro Low UNC. "This is the first time [the PlayStation 5] has not made the top three in our Index, a reflection of the slight reduction in bots targeting the console due to stock increases," noted Netacea. "However, its resale value has remained stable, with only a 2% drop since last quarter." Obviously, the console is still a catch for scalper bots and there is a profit of about $100 to be made from resales, however this trend may spell the gradual waning of extortionate prices for the PlayStation 5.
Topics: PlayStation, PlayStation 5