Last weekend, rare images of a crowd provoked by the sale of PS5s in a large electronics store in Tokyo were posted on the Internet. Since many consoles were sold before sales were interrupted for security reasons, they were immediately resold in nearby thrift stores. The affected brand decided to prevent the situation from recurring in the future. When putting sticks in the speculators’ wheels.
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The Japanese magazine website Famitsu reports on Akihabara’s new action on the famous Yodobashi camera chain following the chaos caused by the self-service sale of a PS5 inventory last weekend. This particularly dangerous mass movement in these times of the COVID-19 pandemic was largely caused by speculators who wanted to resell their PS5s immediately after buying them.
In fact, photos posted on social networks last weekend showed that Yodobashi Camera customers with their freshly purchased PS5s were lining up outside thrift stores in Akihabara to resell their console (more expensive than it is). She obviously bought them.
To address this issue, the store decided to change the way they sell Sony’s new console. From now on, to purchase a PS5 from the Yodobashi store in Akihabara, every customer must have the store’s Visa Gold Point Card Plus card and purchase the console with it (Conditions already in the other branches of the chain).
Coupled with these terms, Yodobashi Camera has determined that the following people cannot purchase a PS5 from any of their stores:
- A person who has a temporary Visa Gold Point Card Plus card.
- Someone who previously bought a PlayStation 5 from Yodobashi Camera.
- Someone who has bought multiple Yodobashi Camera Nintendo Switches in the past.
- A person whose actions have annoyed other customers (at least a vague point).
- A person using a Visa Gold Point Card Plus that is not their name.
The speculators in the viewfinder
Yodobashi Camera also states that it denies the right to sell a PS5 to a customer if it suspects that the console is for resale. The brand also states that it will stop selling consoles at certain pre-announced times to avoid situations similar to last weekend’s.
It also appears that these measures limit the ability for foreigners to purchase a PS5 from Yodobashi Camera. Indeed, testimonials show that the files for obtaining a Visa Gold Point Card Plus are often denied to foreigners.
The PS5 continues to suffer from inventory levels around the world, particularly in Japan, where console quantities Sony sells are low at best. As everywhere, this has consequences for the demand and the resale price of “used” consoles.
With many Japanese stores determining the selling price of products based on demand, it is currently possible for speculators to resell the console they just purchased at a price above the official retail price. Obviously, the consoles are then sold even more expensive. Despite the discipline known to the Japanese, speculators also seem to be a nuisance in the Japanese archipelago.
For your information, Sony sold 245,957 PS5s in Japan on January 24th. Due to the lack of sufficient quantities available, the PS5 had the worst Japanese start in the history of PlayStation home consoles.
