The hunt for a PlayStation 5 has now rolled into 2022, and while issues surrounding chip manufacturers are not expected to be solved anytime soon, Sony has just provided some more positive news that will hopefully help those in Europe to secure one even faster.
As consumer demand for the PS5 failed to be met throughout much of 2021, Sony took it into its own hands and started offering consoles via its own PlayStation Direct store. The problem is that you can only get one through Sony's exclusive invitations program, which would choose PlayStation account holders at random (who opted-in) to purchase the console. Even then, we've seen those selected leave with nothing due to stock shortages.
The alternative was to wait for one of these queues to open up to the public and hope you could snag one before they all sell out. Now though, Sony has opened up registrations to a lot more countries across Europe.
This is great news as previously only those in the US could sign-up to be notified of any new stock drops. The service has now opened up to include the following countries: the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg.
To register, simply head to the PlayStation Direct registration page and sign-up with the email address tied to your PSN account. It's also recommended that you opt-in to receive emails from PlayStation. Once a PS5 buying opportunity becomes available, Sony will email you directly and (in theory) you should be able to log on, avoid the chaos and walk away with a new console.
We'll have to wait and see how effective this method is for consumers. After Microsoft announced its intention to buy Call of Duty maker Activision Blizzard for nearly $70 billion, it would be smart for Sony to get as many PS5 consoles in as many homes as possible. To keep up with the latest stock drops, head on over to the official T3 PS5 restock tracker.
