Beware! Scalpers Reselling Astro Bot PS5 Controllers for Ridiculous Prices

Wow, who saw that coming? I mean, besides absolutely anyone remotely involved in gaming in the last decade or so? Who did everyone think they were competing with buying preorders?

@Shepherd_Tallon Smyths IE only delivers to Ireland.

And water is wet. Sadly this is how things will continue to be. Anything that is limited or even perceived as such is bought by "resellers."

I really think you need to work on your poll options.

"Yes, I pre-ordered as fast as I could" and "Yeah, I snagged one" are basically the same answer, while the other three are versions of "no" with little variation.

Meanwhile, there isn't a single option for those who would say "no, I wanted one but missed it", which ironically is exactly who this article seems targeted towards.

I only say this because I've noticed this issue on several Push Square polls before. Realistically, you only need three options:

• Yes I pre-ordered.
• No i didn't.
• No, but I want to.

At first I wanted one but when it came to the day pre orders went live I changed my mind. I already have four controllers (White/Red/Purple/Baby Blue) and can't justify buying another at that price no matter what it looks like.

I think this is an UK and US-only problem. I'm from Nordic and i pre-ordered the Astro Bot controller on the morning when the pre-orders opened I checked other retailers a couple of days later to see if they still had pre-orders available and they did. Yesterday I accidentally canceled pre-orders for both the controller and the game but luckily I managed to pre-order them again in the same retailer without failure.

If you buy from scalpers, you are the reason scalpers exist.

Don’t “beware”. If you wanna pay the exorbitant prices scalpers charge, go right ahead!

I don't really care about the scalpers anymore, but that cover image made me audibly "aw".

Astro's Playroom remains my favourite PS5 game and I can't wait for Astro Bot. I love the design of the limited edition controller and bought one with no intention of reselling. However, I'm slightly concerned that the white analog sticks will get grubby over time, and I already have 3 PS5 controllers so I certainly don't "need" it right now. I'm inclined to keep it sealed so it retains it's value, but if I choose to sell it in 18 months time does that make me a scalper??

Imagine if governments implemented a law that items still in circulation could only be sold at a maximum of their rrp by third party sellers. Would completely put an end to the business of scalping and send these scum bags back to whatever hole they crawled out of 😁

Wasn't that a given? Limited edition thing sells out rapidly. Did anyone think for a moment they were being grabbed mostly by actual customers?

Let's hope Sony releases a load more of these. That would surely damage a lot of business the scalpers are hoping to do?

@Milt I admit I'm envious. In the US it feels like anything that can be limited in supply will guaranteed by mostly purchased by resellers for the purpose of selling for the maximum price rich people are willing to pay. Which turns out is a very high price, and there's a lot of rich people willing to pay it.

Heck, during the GPU shortages in 2020-2021, MSI (the motherboard/GPU company) was actually scalping their OWN products, not shipping inventory through regular channels and flipping their own product at high above MSRP pricing because they knew people would pay, and they could.

It'll be a miracle if PS6 doesn't launch at $1500 to get all the impatient whales with lots of spare money and low patience and self control, and only come down to rational pricing after sales die down.

Had on pre-order from Target but ended up cancelling. Decided I just really don't need one. Plus white controllers always get dingy and discolored after time, no matter how clean your hands are when playing.

They were on eBay for £120 about an hour after preorders went live.

Here we go again. Scalpers are nothing but parasites. Hey, they're trying to feed their families they said back during COVID. What's your excuse now scumbags? The likes of eBay and such should really clamp down on this, they're enabling them in a way. When the Switch 2 is announced best make sure I get my preorder in before these a-holes get there first and I have to wait up to two years for a retail one.

There's a big difference between folk buying up loads to sell at double or even treble the RRP and genuine gamers who buy a few to sell at 15 quid mark-up to make their own one for free.

They were available at Game, Smyths and Very near enough all day Friday and EE Store actually still had stock till yesterday so anyone who wanted one of these at retail had plenty of opportunity to grab one.

I missed out on the 500 million PS4 Pro and ended up paying through the nose for it because I was desperate to have one. I didn't hold a grudge against the reseller who made a quick 200 quid out of me, I was actually really grateful because I felt it a fair price.

People get irate whenever 'you snooze you lose' gets mentioned but it's always been that way with all high demand consumer goods. It was like it long before the Internet existed and will always be like it so it is what it is.

The root of the problem is not scalpers, they are actually one of the results.
The issue started with Sony, and their decision to release a "limited edition" controller, knowing full well what happened with their own PS5 and it's limited stock ~3 years ago...
But I guess they enjoy watching people squirm over their unavailable hardware... so they're really cranking that "people will always crave what they don't have" knob at 120%

I wish Sony just did pre-orders to meet demand with these things rather than making an artificially limited quantity. That would kill the scalping dead, and Sony would get alot more money directly into their pockets.

I literally don't care about a controller being limited edition. Yes I was lucky enough to get the spiderman one and I have a preorder in for this one, but everyone that wants one should have the opportunity to buy one.

@Neither_scene the game collection was selling the zelda pro controller at £20 above rrp when it was the only retailer to have any last year which is called market forces. if you are anti free market and want a totalitarian government that dictates prices move to north korea otherwise just deal with it!

@Shinnok789 So Sony are merely doing what Nintendo and Rolex have been doing in their respective spheres for years now.

In Poland you may preorder them with no problem as for today.

The only crux here is that it's limited edition. Hopefully demand for the controller isn't actually that high (scalpers using bots could easily make demand seem higher than it is), and scalpers end up with controllers that they just can't sell.

Side note - you can still find plenty of listings for PS Portals on eBay exceeding the retail price, despite them being readily available in stores. Amusingly this means people trying to sell them used are checking listings for an idea of what they should list as, and also refusing to sell for less than retail.

ps nice detail work on the image. made me think for a moment that the eyes actually change!

@Mortal do you actually believe smart scalpers dont return goods they cant shift to the retailers they bought them from then? 🤣

@AstroBottom some may, but check eBay - a lot hold onto the idea that will be able to sell for above retail, even when the item is widely available at retail.

@AstroBottom thanks for that, I have a degree in business economics so I think I might just about understand how market forces work 😉

The RRP is set by the manufacturer of the product. The item’s price is based on the supply provided to licensed sellers and the projected demand for the item. Scumbags who reduce supply by bulk buying the item with bots and then artificially inflate the price is not how a competitive free market is designed to work.

We saw many examples of the same scumbags with rooms filled with ps5’s when the console first launched. Hoarding and artificially restricting supply and then increasing the price by 100%.

They’re still available for retail on Amazon Japan.

@Chasloyal Just because Sony's not the only one doing it, doesn't make said action right - it's still the main reason scalping exists...

@Hck Doesn't deliver everywhere in Europe, so...
It's a good tip but that Amazon is limited to big countries unfortunately.

Ah, I see. I live in Japan so I was not aware.

By the way, the controller's scalped price was reduced from 200 Euro to 150 Euro on Amazon BE and NL.... unexpected.

Not surprising to see. That'll always happen when companies put "Limited" on their products. I saw that it went back in stock a few times on PS Direct though so hopefully most of the people that wanted one were able to get it.

@Shinnok789 If something is marketed and released as a limited edition product and then the manufacturer opted to produce excessive amounts resulting in the market being flooded I'd say that would be very very wrong.

So I'm sorry but I totally disagree with your opinion, I'd say it does actually make the said action right and proper.

@Neither_scene Sorry to gatecrash your debate with Astro but I just couldn't sit idly by.

As someone who bought a few of these controllers on Friday and Saturday for myself, for Christmas pressies and two to sell I take exception to being called a scumbag. And as for using bots, blimey I wouldn't have a clue where to start!

They were in stock at multiple retailers all day Friday and still in stock with two or three of them on Saturday, with EE still having them available most of Sunday too.

So anyone who fancied an Astro Bot controller literally had the entire weekend to secure one, two or even more at RRP if they so wanted so please stop with lobbing personal insults about eh.

@Chasloyal buying them as presents, I have absolutely no issue with. Buying them to sell on and make a profit, yeah, I think it’s a scumbag move. I’m entitled to my opinion, and I’m clearly not alone in it. If they’ve sold out, you’ve essentially stopped someone from buying it to add to their collection or use at the RRP just so you can make some money for your own pocket. Sorry, that’s just how I see it.

I just pre-ordered mine on the US Playstation store. Yesterday it said sold out, but today it was available. Perhaps Sony is rolling out availability to restrict the "limited edition reselling fanciers" from performing their mercantilist ethos.

I hate scalpers with a passion! They are some of the scummiest POS in the world. I say all that even though I got my preorder in at Best Buy but it still irks me because these controllers could have been gifts to kids from their parents or other uses but instead people who had no labor involved in these getting made take advantage of people to line their pockets for doing nothing but being scumbags

I preordered one no problem here in the UK. 🤷‍♂️

@UltimateOtaku91 The purple one looks awsome. Sony could screw the scalpers and release a extra batch.

@Neither_scene You are scum if you are a scalper i don't care how people try to make it sound right.

@NEStalgia Kinda weird that this is even legal well it is the US after all.

@Chasloyal You're defending an action invented by sellers to stir up buyer interest by taking advantage of the human psyche.
Action that is very well known by it's initiators to always result nowadays in an effed up tactic from opportunistic individuals, called scalping - and they do it anyway. But I guess that's not a problem... we love scalping and paying through the nose 2-3 times the normal price.

Should I add that Sony's own PS Direct stores only sell the controller in the countries they are located, and they don't make it available worldwide?
And the only stores that sell it internationally namely Amazon, get scalped to hell with the help of bots?
So half or more of the total of interested buyers only see the proverbial "dangled carrot", without actually having a legal chance to preorder one.

All Sony had to do is manufacture 100.000 controllers instead of 5.000 or whatever this "limited edition" numbers actually translate to.
That is not "flooding the market", it's providing sufficient stock so that everyone has a chance without being forced to trip over themselves to get one for their kid... And it would have avoided scalping.

But hey, who gives a crap, right?
If every major company does it, it's fair game, they should keep doing it.
And the resulting scalping... well that's just life, innit?
If it gives you lemons, you should stick to making lemonade, and not strive to make a "better drink"....

*no one was surprised

@Flaming_Kaiser From a legal standpoint I kind of get it. The idea is, anyone is free to sell anything in their possession, the only gray area being the requirement to pay tax on the sale, which, if scalped on ebay or Amazon or something actually does happen. So legally, it would be weird to use the law to stop someone from selling something they own (thus digital games being a "license" rather than a product purchased and that whole mess.) And that's just retail.

It's one of those things where it would be awkward to use the law to prevent it (then could the law stop you from reselling anything and everything?) and depends on the moral fabric of the culture itself to choose not to abuse it. The whole idea of self governing society. Turns out the whole idea doesn't work, and society lost all moral fabric a long time ago reverting to a child-like morality of "will I get caught and how severe is the punishment?"

@Shinnok789 Sadly, I think Nintendo started the ball rolling on under-producing hardware and creating a scarce supply culture to drum up demand and price starting with Wii, then Switch. With Nintendo's successful history of that Sony's been trying to copy that, and then after the 2020/2021 shortages I think they (and Nvidia) took to heart just how powerful a tool shorting production on everything is to watch everyone fight over supply at any price. And unfortunately it works predictably and will be the standard tactic forever more probably.

Ironically it's one of the things the pushed me over the edge toward going back to PC. I know PS and Nintendo will be like this forever now, and though Nvidia does it too, I'd rather upgrade a year after a card launches anyway. PS and Nintendo purchases can wait until they're "old hat" and available everywhere and on sales.

They are back in stock at the moment on the US PlayStation Direct site. Just grabbed one!

@Shinnok789 Did you really write all that in what is little more than an entitled rant?

Seiko get ridiculed for releasing their 'limited edition' watches that number 3000 or 4000 because the community feel those are saturation numbers.

Yet here's you advocating Sony should be releasing their limited edition controllers in the hundreds of thousands, wow just wow!

@Neither_scene you're entitled to your opinion and I get what you're saying but I've already outed both the ones that I bought spare, and not at outlandish prices I hasten to add.

Whilst the seasoned hard-core resellers are listing theirs at up to 150 quid a pop I sold my two at 90 quid each. One of the buyers is from abroad so he actually bought it through eBay's Global Shipping Programme.

I can assure you eBay appear to have earned far more out of the transaction than what I did because matey forked out over 128 quid in total, just putting it out there.

@NEStalgia I don't care about the legal situation I just think your a bloody ass#### if you do that. 😆

@Neither_scene check you warren buffet so why the hate for making coin? if i wasnt flipping anything i can flip i would most likely be robbing school kids and pensioners or perhaps arranging illegal academic fights where post graduates battle each other to the death!

@Mortal more fool them then!

@Flaming_Kaiser Yep, that's covered under the moral fabric part. In the US we sell moral fabric by the foot or by the yard.