According to new research, Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 scalpers have made almost $60 million since the consoles were released in November. It has been extremely difficult for regular fans to secure the new consoles, and the number of scalpers using bots have made the process even more difficult for those who wanted to avail themselves an Xbox Series X or PlayStation 5 by Christmas. These issues also don’t look like they will be going away anytime soon.
Scalpers began becoming a major problem almost instantly after the release of the new systems, but the PlayStation 5 appeared to be dealing with the majority of it. Scalpers managed to purchase thousands of PlayStation 5 units only to resell them to customers at unreasonable prices.
The high cost of the PlayStation 5 has been found in various listings such as eBay and has continued to rise as the possibility of getting a PlayStation 5 has become feeble. Several of these scalpers are even charging up to $3000 per consoles.
Data Engineer Examines Q4 Scalping in PC and Console Market https://t.co/pN0TsaeLIF pic.twitter.com/QyMrtTwHfU
— Tom's Hardware (@tomshardware) December 9, 2020
Unfortunately, it appears as though scalping has worked out extremely well for some of these groups since Tom’s Hardware reports that the new systems have made scalping groups an absurd amount of cash last November.
The Xbox Series X|S were sold for about 150% higher than their suggested retail price on average. This means that scalping groups have made almost $3.5 million on the Xbox Series S and $20 million on the Xbox Series X.
Meanwhile, the PlayStation 5 Digital Edition has been sold about 350% its retail price on average and the standard edition has been sold for about 200%. This means that scalpers have generated a profit of almost $7 million for the PlayStation 5 Digital Edition and $27 million for its standard edition. In general, this means scalpers have gained almost $60 million in nearly two months from selling these new consoles.
Scalping has just been one of the many problems that have caused both the Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 to be hard to obtain this Christmas season. Nearly every time the PlayStation 5 has gone on sale it has caused seller websites like Walmart to crash almost instantly.
Most sites continue to sell out all of their available stock within seconds of putting them up for sale, and it appears like it might be a while before obtaining a new system is a simple process. Scalping has always been a significant problem when huge gaming consoles go on sale, but this has been one of the largest issues mainstream gaming has encountered in a while.
As long as the demand for the Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 continues to soar and fans are willing to waste their funds, scalpers will continue to make this type of money off of players.