Wondering why you might have been struggling this week during the most recent PS5 re-stock events?
According to one report, scalpers hit the Argos PS5 re-stock, leaving gamers unable to capitalise on the surprise release.
New PlayStation 5s became available to buy from Argos in the early morning of January 26, and a small trickle of gamers were able to buy a console.
But according to a new report from Eurogamer, at least one group of scalpers were able to snap up the PS5 consoles before anyone else could.
An exploit was used to buy PS5 consoles before they were available to the general public, and when they did go live, both the site and Argos App were hit by technical issues.
Eurogamer reports that this exploit has now been removed, with Argos revealing in a new statement:
“It’s clear our customers are excited for the new PlayStation. We released a small amount of additional stock and have seen huge numbers of customers trying to place their orders with us, and we have now sold out.”
Meanwhile, Argos are telling gamers on Twitter today: “We are working hard to replenish the stock of the PS5 at the moment. Please keep an eye on our website, where you will find the most up to date information on current stock availability. Our contact centre staff are unable to provide any additional information.”
It’s unclear what the exploit was that led to this issue, but it’s good news for gamers that it has now been eliminated and won’t cause future problems.
Online retailer Very was the next UK store to host a PS5 re-stock, which again sold out very quickly and dropped randomly.
It’s unclear which store might be next, but fans hope that GAME or Currys will offer more stock on Thursday or Friday.
Meanwhile, the Xbox Series S is currently the only next-gen console that’s available to buy online.
The cheaper Xbox Series S can be found in-stock on the Microsoft UK website, but it’s unclear how long it will remain available.
The Xbox Series S doesn’t boast the same firepower as the PS5, which might explain why it isn’t suffering from the same stock shortages.
For those wondering what the difference is between the Xbox Series X and Series S consoles, the primary difference is in resolution, disc-drive and hard-drive space.
This will be similar to the PS5, with Microsoft explaining: “Through talking to our customers, we found that many of our fans prioritize framerate over resolution, so we wanted to build a console that didn’t require a 4K TV, a message from Microsoft explains.
“Xbox Series S delivers approximately 3x the GPU performance of Xbox One and was designed to play games at 1440p at 60 frames per second, with support for up to 120fps.
“With the increased efficiency we get from the next generation AMD RDNA 2 graphics architecture combined with the virtual memory multipliers enabled through the Xbox Velocity Architecture, Xbox Series S will deliver performance and experiences well beyond the raw specs.”
