PS5 is already selling out, a day before Sony said pre-orders would go live

Multiple retailers have already sold out of PlayStation 5 pre-orders, despite Sony telling fans that pre-sales for the console would begin starting Thursday, September 17.

In the US, retailers including Target, Walmart, Gamestop and Best Buy went live with their PS5 pre-orders within hours of PlayStation’s PS5 showcase on Wednesday.

The first three have already sold out, while Best Buy’s website is seemingly experiencing technical difficulties, which have frustrated fans enough to cause the retailer’s name to trend on Twitter.

A Walmart spokesperson told VGC it would soon have more PlayStation 5 consoles available for pre-order via its physical stores.

In the UK, Game and Smyths also started taking PS5 pre-orders the day before PlayStation UK said they would.

The retailers immediately sold out of Digital Edition consoles, which sources had previously told VGC were expected to be in short supply compared to the standard hardware. As of Thursday morning, Game is not listing any PS5 products.

Amazon UK opened its pre-orders for the standard PlayStation 5 console on Thursday morning and sold out in around 30 minutes. The Digital Edition went live later and sold out in even less time.

Sony has sent out invites to those who were invited to pre-order PlayStation 5 directly from PlayStation, although invited customers will not be able to purchase the console until Friday.

In July, PlayStation’s worldwide marketing head Eric Lempel claimed the platform holder would give consumers fair notice before pre-orders went live.

“So I think it’s safe to say, we’ll let you know when pre-orders will happen,” he said. “It’s not going to happen with a minute’s notice.

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PlayStation confirms its PlayStation 5 games will cost up to $70 / £70

While some smaller or family titles will cost less

“We’re going to at some point let you know when you can pre-order a PlayStation 5 so please don’t feel like you have to go run and line up anywhere until you receive official notice on how that will work.”

Daniel Ahmad, senior analyst at Niko Partners, told VGC he expects supply issues for both PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X this year.

“While production is ramping up and component scarcity is less of an issue than before, we believe that logistics issues will be a barrier for both platform holders to overcome this holiday, with the impact from Covid-19 leading to long shipping times and shortages on store shelves during the launch period.

“We expect Sony and Microsoft to utilise air shipments, which will cost more, to meet demand this year.”