Another part of the increasingly sad and soul-crushing where to buy Xbox Series X story has just come to light regarding the latest console restock in the UK, which has been brutally raided by a now infamous PS5 scalper group.
As reported by VGC, the scalper group that made itself famous by reporting that it had managed to secure 3,500 PlayStation 5 consoles to resell, has now proceeded to turn its attention to Xbox Series X, which just got a restock at UK retailer Very.
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Unfortunately for gamers, though, that meant that over 1,000 of the consoles Very sold got immediately snatched by the group, called CrepChiefNotify, who then proceeded to publicly acknowledge the fact on its social media channels.
Writing on Instagram, CrepChiefNotify said that:
"We’ve done it again! ✅
We just notified our members of a Xbox Series X restock on a very well known online retailer.
They have now managed to secure over 1000+ today and there’s still many hours left.
You snooze you lose. 💤"
The full post can be viewed below:
CrepChiefNotify also recently shared another social media post that explained "we have no regrets" over their behaviours regarding reselling next-gen consoles, stating that:
"Lots of our community have been furloughed, made redundant, or at some form of disadvantage due the pandemic. These people have managed to cover their bills, put food on the table and supply Christmas presents to their children. It may be unfortunate that a child wont wake up to a PS5 this Christmas, but another child may have woken up to nothing."
The consequences of the scalper group, though, have now been felt by the gaming community, who once more face the daunting prospect of parting with double the cost of the Xbox Series X or more in order to pick up their console of choice or go empty handed for the foreseeable future.
And, as for the PS5, the situation is even worse. Right now consoles are retailing for up to four times its RRP.
As T3 wrote in its where to buy PS5 guide, there is absolutely nothing illegal about this reselling behaviour and it now falls upon the manufacturers and the retailers to come up with a better way of putting new stock up for sale, as otherwise gamers could be facing up to a year of inflated console prices thanks to scalpers
After all, these resellers "have no regrets" and aren't going to stop buying Xbox Series X or PS5 consoles.
When AI notification services and reseller bots can run rampant like this only one thing happens, which can be seen in the image directly below:
A small group of resellers get to wall off thousands of consoles from gamers and hold them hostage with massive mark-ups. If they don't fix this situation then it doesn't matter how many new consoles they make, thousands upon thousands are going to disappear down the scalper hole.
Now, of course, there's the free market and supply and demand, and here at T3 we recognise that – we all live in the real world. But there's the free market and then there are armies of reseller notification and shopping bots controlled by a select, privileged few. We think it fair to say that the sooner retailers can curb the power of scalpers and reseller the bots the better.
Here at T3 we truly hope all of the profits made by these resellers truly do go to feed hungry children this Christmas...
