In search of a PlayStation 5 since February, Tetsuya, 50, joined shortly following 6:30 a.m. a queue of several dozen people in front of a shop in Akihabara, district “geekof the Japanese capital.
But around 8 a.m., a uniformed employee comes to announce that the store did not receive either PS5 or Xbox that day. The crowd disperses quickly and silently. “It’s a shame, but I’ll try my luck once more if I have the chance“, philosopher Tetsuya, interviewed by AFP.
Machines from Sony and Microsoft – Nintendo’s Switch is also affected – suffered from supply chain disruptions upon their release in November 2020, further accentuated this year by confinements in China, complicating production and delivery. .
Japanese electronics stores, following experiencing scenes of chaos when consoles were put on sale that sometimes required the intervention of the police, have for the most part since opted for online sales by lottery in order to avoid gatherings in the midst of a pandemic.
To discourage thescalping“, the purchase in order to then resell at a high price on the internet, some brands also choose to sell their consoles without warning, according to random arrivals.
The phenomenon called “guerrilla sale” in the Archipelago, a term that would have appeared when Nintendo’s DS console, victim of its success, encountered supply problems in the 2000s, thus prompting hundreds of people to try their luck throughout Japan, the most often on weekends, before the shops open.
