Some politicians have probably not received any next-gen consoles: MPs from Scotland want to soon ban scalping by law.
For many, the release of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X / S was pretty frustrating because they didn’t get a console anywhere. Instead, scalpers and botters have bought up large quantities of the rare hardware and offered them at moon prices (for the report: Xbox Series X / S: Scalper group is being put on hold by retailers). Some Scottish politicians want to ban this with a law.
So far, the scalper groups have acted completely legally when they purchase large quantities of the very limited consoles with bots and entire communities and resell them overpriced. But that could change soon, because six MPs from the Scottish National Party (SNP) want to ban the trading method by means of a bill. Their argument: The resale of tickets at prices well above the manufacturer’s recommendation is already prohibited in Great Britain. The same should now apply to consoles and hardware components. The law would therefore also apply to graphics cards, which are also traded by scalpers.
The MPs also argue that goods purchased by bots should be labeled illegal in the future. That would make reselling scaled hardware much more difficult. So far, the draft, which was written in a so-called “Early Day Notion” (EDN), has only been signed by 21 people.
With an EDN, political representatives can bring important topics to the discussion about legislative processes, but not more for the time being. A date for the submission in parliament is currently open, especially since digital topics are currently not enjoying the greatest political popularity. If you absolutely want a console or other high-end hardware these days, you will still have to deal with scalpers.
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