Did you want a Play Station 5 (PS5) for Christmas this year? You were out of luck. With the new release of the PS5 and the high demand for the latest and greatest model, it was almost impossible to find for the common folks. Retailers like Target, Best Buy, and Walmart received very few shipments to sell to consumers. This led to heartache for fathers like Matthew Dennis of New Ulm, Minnesota. “All I wanted to do was give my boys a PS5 for Christmas but I’m not willing to take out a loan to do it. Sorry, boys.” 

According to Sony, the head company of the PS5, they have been released at different times with limited numbers of consoles each time due to Covid restrictions and the shortage of the console’s processing microchip. There is a very short supply of machines each time making it very hard to get one. 

Another reason that makes it difficult to order the new console is the number of bots that are able to buy the consoles within seconds of their release. Bots are computer programs that are designed to add the PS5 to the shopping cart and check out before it is humanly possible to do without such a program. The people that used the bots are able to resell the console at sometimes triple the amount of the original cost of $499 to those who are desperate to get a hold of one. Look out for the new releases as Sony continues to release the console out slowly.