Who pays scalper prices for new PS5 or Xbox?

[BippityBoppityBoo]

@What_Exit

But as I think scalpers of concert tickets & ballgames are scum, just scum of a lesser degree

I agree. Those prices always shut me out. There are times seeing a football game or my favorite band feels like a necessity. In my area the University polices pretty vigorously scalping of their sports tickets but other events like concerts are a free for all-venues and police just look the other way so it gets worse over time. Grrr…

[ISiddiqui]

@Procrustus

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)

Well the consoles are actually $400/$500 (digital and disk versions) and scalpers are selling for over $1000, if that changes your calculus at all.

I pre-ordered one on the first pre-order day (September, IIRC), but even then it was a shitshow. Lots of online retailers selling out quick. I got one from Best Buy, which sold out of its first tranche but had another one around midnight that day. Even then I kept getting error messages when clicking the “Purchase” button. After like the 30th time of clicking it, it went through.

[Dewey_Finn]

Plenty of people who can afford a $500 gaming console would also be able to afford a $1500 gaming console, so the market for scalped PS5 is quite large.

[kayaker]

A friend of mine used to work for a record label. She’d leave tickets for me at will-call. Once I picked up my tickets and there were 4 tickets instead of the two I expected. They were excellent seats, of course.

I looked at the line of people waiting to buy tickets, and found a couple I wouldn’t mind sitting next to. I approached them and held up two tickets and asked if they’d like them. Seeing they were great seats, the woman immediately said no, they weren’t spending “that kinda money”. The man wanted the seats and offered 2X face value. She glared at him.

I finally made them listen to me. I couldn’t use the two tickets, I wanted to give them the seats, but I didn’t want to argue about it. They happily took the tickets and bought me a couple beers during the concert.

[ISiddiqui]

@Dewey_Finn

Plenty of people who can afford a $500 gaming console would also be able to afford a $1500 gaming console, so the market for scalped PS5 is quite large.

Could and would are different things. Some people do have an upper limit they’d be willing to spend.

[Dewey_Finn]

Of course. But that still leaves many who would spend that much.

[Atamasama]

You do have to be cautious when buying items from scalpers. I saw a documentary once where a woman had to buy a Good Guy doll for her son as a birthday present from a homeless man, and it turned out to have the soul of a serial killer in it.

[Arcite]

@Atamasama

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.

I don’t think the analogy quite holds. What if the item originated near you, so that you could have received it in time with standard shipping, but someone who owns a shipping company bought up the entire stock and moved it to the other side of the country just so he could charge you an arm and a leg for shipping? He doesn’t actually want the item; he’s just taking extreme measures to beat you to the purchase so he can price-gouge you.

And the console makers do have a reason to care, because the consoles themselves are loss-leaders for them. They make their money from games and accessories. If all the units they’ve made so far are sitting in scalpers’ garages rather than gamers’ living rooms, they’re not selling games and accessories.