I guess people who are loaded and don’t care about the price? When the PS2 came out way back I got one for normal price Jan 1st. Eventually the scalpers will go away when the machines are easy to get.
Maybe some kids really have their hearts set on one for Xmas and they have rich and/or desperate parents.
The phrase “more money than sense” wasn’t coined because it was ironic and unheard-of.
Or rich divorced parents competing for a kids attention at Christmas.
Moved over to the Game Room from the Cafe.
a sucker is born every minute which BTW did not come from PT Barnum.
I was just doing a search on this topic last night (as I keep trying to get a PS5 every time new stock drops somewhere, only to have them sell out immediately) and came across this Reddit comment, which basically confirms your theory:
I worked at Best Buy during the PS4 launch and I can tell you exactly who is hitting up the scalpers.
It’s a lot of upper middle class suburban parents. They have a 8-15 year old kid and they want a PS5 for Christmas. They don’t game, they don’t follow gaming news, and they won’t realize how hard it is to get one till its too late. Then they’re faced with tell the kid they’ll get a ps5 “eventually” on Christmas morning or pay an extra $XXX.XX amount of money to make their kid happy and not worry about it.
I interpret this person as saying that these parents heard these things were coming out in November, and on that basis, without knowing anything about the gaming industry, and thus knowing that they’d be almost impossible to get your hands on for several months, promised their child, or gave their child the impression, that they would definitely get one for Christmas. They just assume “oh, this thing comes out on November 12th, I’ll have plenty of time to get one, no problem.” Then they’re sold out everywhere, and they keep being sold out everywhere, and suddenly it’s December 15th with no stock in sight, and the parents panic.
Incidentally, that Reddit thread contains a couple of comments from people saying they would or did buy from a scalper because they have plenty of money and just don’t care–but it contains an order of magnitude more comments from people who say they have plenty of money but would never patronize these scum.
When people say “it’s not the money, it’s the principle of the thing,” it’s the money.
I have plenty of money and I’m not buying one from a scalper.
Another point made in the Reddit thread is that for someone who’s actually interested in gaming, there’s almost no reason to pay more to get one now when you could get one for the regular price probably in February or March. There are almost zero exclusive games for it–for me, personally, there are none that I want. Getting one right now really wouldn’t get me anything I don’t already have.
My niece did gymnastics from age 11-18 or so at a private gym. Most of the other girls were rich (or at least richer than my brother or at least lived larger than he did) and one in particular had divorced parents, one of whom gave her the latest iPhone every year.
I could have been a parent like that. I would have had no idea a new device would be hard to get (this thread, for example, is the first I’ve heard about that problem). I wouldn’t think of scalpers as scum necessarily either. And I have no idea what one is supposed to cost. If it goes for $250 and I’m having trouble finding one, and some guy has one now for $500, I’d probably buy it (assuming I had a kid who expressed a strong desire to have one)
I don’t have a problem with someone paying a premium to get an unavailable item. Think of it like paying a ridiculous amount for expedited shipping when a purchase is time sensitive. I would lie if I said that I have never paid more in shipping on an item than the item’s price simply because I needed to get it faster. This is somewhat along those lines.
Or it’s like buying a collectible which is valuable because it is rare. You are paying extra for the (temporary) rarity in this case.
Of course I wouldn’t pay that kind of money for a console because I ain’t no sucker. 
Also, why are these scalpers scum?
We’re not talking about some basic necessity. We’re talking about a gaming system, which is a luxury good even if it is middle-class affordable.
If they’re able to get a hold of one at normal prices and then jack it up because of scarcity, who cares? If the manufacturers and stores cared, there are measures they can take to prevent scalping. They don’t, because it costs them more to do so than what they make on the console…and consoles are typically sold at or below manufacture cost because the profit is made from the game license fees.
Scalpers exist because people are willing to pay the prices.
It we’re talking necessity goods, then scalpers are scum. But for gaming consoles? Meh.
Toilet paper scalpers are scum. Mask scalpers are scum. Hand sanitizer scalpers are scum.
Air Jordan and Nintendo Switch? Not so much.
The issue isn’t that they’re “getting hold of one” but rather that, especially in this online era with bots, getting hold of most of them. And it’s not especially easy to prevent aside from very intensive measures that bog the system down to a crawl. After Nvidia had a disastrous launch on their RTX 3000 series video cards, AMD promised that they’d take all sorts of anti-bot measures. A couple weeks later, AMD got rolled as hard as Nvidia on stocks with bots buying them out within a few minutes. About the only chance most people have of getting these things (consoles and video cards) is to wait in a line outside a store at 3am in hopes that they got a shipment in overnight.
Bingo. I remember 2007 when the Wii was still the hot console.(When it was first released in 2006, I knew there was no chance, so didn’t even try to get one. Picked up a used Game Cube for $50 though) Around September I started watching the Target/Best Buy/Toys R Us ads every Saturday night, as a mention in the Sunday circular meant the chain had a shipment but wouldn’t put them on the sales floor until Sunday morning. I got one in October and stuck it in the back of the closet.
Our next door neighbors had kids the same age as mine, and after Thanksgiving asked me “Do your kids want a Wii too? We can’t find them anywhere. They’re too expensive online.” They said $600 was typical, for something that I got retail for $250. Santa had to leave their kids an IOU. I always wondered if their kids asked why Santa gave their friends next door one but stiffed them.
Yeah, it’s odd.
I guess some people just have more money than patience but I understand why some people like streamers buy them from scalpers.
Posts like this should probably be cited even in the Game Room, so here you go.
I don’t know. No question on your first line. Scalpers of necessities are scum.
But as I think scalpers of concert tickets & ballgames are scum, just scum of a lesser degree, it is hard to defend scalpers of Air Jordans and Switches.
My wife phrases that as “more dollars than sense”.
Remembering back, my wife bought a Wii off eBay back when they were super hard to find in stores. I don’t think she paid that much of a premium… maybe under an extra $100 which isn’t cheap but it wasn’t doubling the price either. It was worth it to us to just have that purchase done with and to not try to compete with people camping outside the Toys R Us every morning waiting for a shipment.
At least back then it was people putting the time and effort into physically stalking them in stores instead of just setting up bots to refresh store pages fifty times a second and instantly purchase anything that comes up with computerized precision, using burner pass-through credit card and phone numbers to feign being “one per customer”.