Preorders for the PlayStation 5 are beginning to be offered at retailers, but the traffic from early adopters seems to be too much for GameStop. Sony announced the price and release date of the PS5 at a showcase event today, also saying that preorders would go live tomorrow.
Players have been waiting a long time to learn the all-important prices and release dates of next-gen consoles. Just months before the new consoles’ arrival, Microsoft announced that the Xbox Series S and X will be available on November 10th for $299 and $499, respectively. The official confirmation came just hours after credible leaks revealed not only that information, but also the existence of the Series S in the first place, along with the look of the console.
Now, Sony has finally lifted the lid on the PlayStation 5, and it seems that not everyone was prepared for the news. While Sony says that preorders are meant to start on September 17th, some retailer made preorders available early, on the night of the 16th. That appears to be causing problems, as GameStop’s website has crashed, presumably from traffic due to fans looking to get their hands on a next-gen console early. Across Twitter, people are reporting the same error popping up when they try to access GameStop’s website, which appears to be the sort of countermeasure that sites use to protect themselves against DDOS attacks, possibly triggered by the mass amount of people checking for PS5 preorders.
The rollout of PlayStation 5 preorders is happening much differently than even Sony seems to have planned for. Earlier in the year, Sony Worldwide head of marketing Eric Lempel appeared on Geoff Keighley’s reveal stream for the PS5’s DualSense controller and reassures players that Sony would give them ample notice before preorders went live. Technically, Sony hasn’t launched its own preorders for the PS5 yet, but even so, giving less than a day’s notice for direct preorders from Sony while letting retailers open their own a day early runs directly counter to what the console maker promised. Sony even let existing PlayStation owners sign up for a preorder waiting list, which now seems to have been completely abandoned.
Regardless of how the opening of preorders is handled, there are plenty of PlayStation fans who will likely be eager to secure their console a day early. Unfortunately, there are a lot more people who will be left out in the cold by the scattershot launch if they’re not lucky enough to snag one of the consoles during the brief windows they’re available from online retailers.