Everyone saw this coming, but it was still disappointing. The fans were I’m drooling over the PlayStation 5 30th Anniversary Collectiona double whammy of nostalgia and snazzy aesthetics when it was revealed earlier this month. Today, many of them stared blankly at PlayStation Direct pre-order screens, watching games sell out while waiting in confusing online queues and wrestling with glitchy website buttons.
The 30th anniversary collection was preordered today and it turns out that the limited edition PS5 Pro bundle, of which only 12,300 were made, wasn’t the only thing that seemed impossible to get. Pre-orders for the PS1-style PS5 Slim bundle, PS Portal, and DualSense controller also disappeared almost immediately, raising the eternal question of why Sony doesn’t just make as many of these items as people want.
Panic broke out overnight as reports came in from Australia and the UK that pre-orders available in each region at 10:00 am local time immediately disappeared, followed by Reseller offers appear on eBay for five to ten times the suggested retail price. As the 30th anniversary pre-order deadline approached in the US, people tried to load the PlayStation Direct page early, but were thrown into a queue with estimated wait times of over an hour.
Adding to the initial confusion was the fact that Sony never really gave fans a clear idea of what to expect from the pre-order process. After revealing the PS5 30th Anniversary Collection, all they said was that they would be available to purchase starting September 26, with no advance notice of an official launch time or even pricing. Essentially, the way it worked was that people trying to order from PlayStation Direct were sent to a waiting room to get a random spot in line to order whatever was left, which seemed like nothing to most people, myself included.
Was it because I hadn’t gotten to the waiting room earlier? Or did I just have a bad spot in line? Was there a better way to go about this? There were anecdotal reports of people coming into the store and then being sent back to the waiting room. It was still confusing to buy things in the store. Even items that weren’t showing as sold out, like the PS1 DualSense controller, couldn’t be purchased when you clicked “Add to Cart.”
It seems like people who just wanted the $80 controller actually had better luck at retailers like Amazon, Best Buy, and GameStop, whose pre-orders for the PS5 controllers went up at the same time as the PlayStation Direct. However, those also sold out pretty quickly. It’s possible that additional stock will be released in waves, like Sony did when demand blew supply out of the water at the PS5’s original launch. But I’m also not sure why Sony isn’t just trying to sell as many PS1-style controllers as possible, at least for those who order in the next few months.
It’s the cheapest option for fans who want to be part of the anniversary hype or just love the idea of bringing all those nights spent in front of their original PS1 into the modern era. Perhaps Sony was just testing the initial demand and will come back later with a bottomless Santa sack full of 30th anniversary PS5 stuff when the holidays come. If not, DualSense controllers for the 30th anniversary PS5 are already available for up to $200 on eBay.
