I Wish Sony Would Only Sell Their Consoles Direct, at Least Until They Have Enough Stock to Go Around

If you are like a majority of the world’s population, you don’t have a PS5. Shoot, you probably don’t stand a chance to even hope to get a PS5, let alone actually get one. Try as I may, I was fruitless in my own endeavors.

Taking into consideration how many large-scale electronics purveyors we have in the United States alone, and the ubiquitous desire to own a brand-new gaming console as soon as it releases, why is it so hard to get one? I mean, aside from the stringent limitations due to the current pandemic.

And speaking of COVID-19, I admit that it seems a little trite for me to be worrying about a stupid game console during a pandemic. Of course,that doesn’t stop a portion of my brain from operating BAU (that’s “business as usual,” for those less slang-savvy than myself).

All of this leads me to ask, why doesn’t Sony skip the retailers entirely? At least until there’s enough stock to go around. I should be able to log into the PSN storefront and purchase either model, then have it shipped to mi casa (that’s “my house,” for those less Spanish-language-savvy than myself). Easy peasy. They already have a direct storefront, so all they’d have to do is just not sell through stores like Target and Walmart, perhaps until next year when they have enough units to satiate the drought.

Now, I’ll admit, I don’t know business. I mean, I don’t know a lot of things, but business is pretty high on that list, sandwiched somewhere between the meaning of life and why people think The Last of Us 2 was so great. I’m much less business-savvy than I am, say, slang-savvy or Spanish-language-savvy. So maybe I am out of my league here.

Still, why doesn’t Sony do what I — a person with no real business experience or expertise — suggest? Clearly, they’d be swimming in money if they’d only take my advice.

If Sony did sell their consoles exclusively through their digital storefront, it would be easier to enforce a one-console-per-household rule, thus cutting down on the amount of scumbag resellers that can get their scuzzy hands on more than their fair share.

It would also streamline the process, as long as their website doesn’t buckle from the weight of the traffic it would generate. I wouldn’t have to stay glued to my monitor, refreshing endlessly, trying to secure one of only a handful of consoles that Walmart has in stock at the moment, only to end up getting the rug pulled out from under me during the checkout process.

I mean, really, I had a PS5 in my cart. How did it sell out from under me? That would be like grabbing some Jenny-O turkey burgers out of another person’s cart while they waited in the checkout line at the grocery store. And I don’t even eat meat — just like how resellers don’t even play the consoles they hoard… (Nicely done, Julian. Nicely done, you handsome devil.)

Sony is just a throw-you-to-the-wolves kind of company I guess. And much like a boy who cried “Wolf!” when there were no wolves to be seen, I guess I’m just destined to be wolf food. And, just like my lack of business savvy, I am just not very savvy in the being-eaten-by-wolves category. I’d like it to keep it that way.