PlayStation 5 leads this year's hard-to-find tech gifts

[Shawn Knight]

Editor's take: You’d think that with so many must-haves this holiday season, there’d be enough total product to go around, but that simply hasn’t proven true. Virtually all of the latest tech toys are in demand and out of stock. Understandably, for some that would normally never consider selling their scores, the potential for a big return is proving difficult to resist.

It’s not unusual for the holiday season to be dominated by a hot gift or two. The NES Classic, Tamagotchi, Tickle Me Elmo and the Furby are just a few that immediately come to mind over, but these were all spread out over multiple years.

In 2020, things are different, at least in the tech sector. The latest video cards from AMD and Nvidia are next to impossible to find in stock, as are Ryzen 5000 series CPUs. And if you want a game console from Sony or Microsoft, you’re either going to have to get incredibly lucky or turn to third-party outlets like eBay and pay a hefty premium.

A quick check of sold listings on eBay for the disc version of the PlayStation 5 reveals an average selling price of around $1,000, give or take a few bucks. It carries an MSRP of just $499. The digital-only version of the console is regularly selling in the mid-$900 range (it normally retails for $399).

The Xbox Series X, meanwhile, seems to be a tad bit more affordable, commanding around $800 or so ($499 MSRP). Microsoft’s Xbox Series S, which normally goes for $299, can be had for roughly $450-500, making it the least expensive of the bunch.

A combination of short supply (likely due to manufacturing hiccups associated with the pandemic), intense demand from consumers and heightened activity from bots / resellers all contributed to the perfect storm we currently find ourselves in.

Masthead credit: Girts Ragelis

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https://www.techspot.com/news/87875-playstation-5-leads-year-hard-find-tech-gifts.html

 

[Vulcanproject]

I can't find anything worthwhile bar decently priced SSDs and cheap RAM.

I managed to source an R5 5600X bundle and will build a machine based around this for someone but I sure as hell can't get a 3060Ti to put in this new machine, which was my plan. Luckily the person understands and will make do with their old GTX970 for a couple more months yet!

 

[QuantumPhysics]

PS5, XBOX, Switch and Quest 2 are mostly sold out or being scalped.

GPU are being scalped.

I haven’t seen Microcenter’s cases this bare since 2017.

Hopefully you managed to stand on line and get everything you wanted cause most people are gonna have to wait till the new year.

I personally got my hands on PS5 and SeriesX as well as the NVIDIA GPUs . It was actually quite exciting being able to.

 

[Irata]

A bit disappointing but my kid will get a voucher for Christmas this year.

Then again, it‘s not like he can‘t play right now....

 

[pcnthuziast]

The new norm. Get used to it because this isn't going away any time soon.

 

[yRaz]

I'll try to find the article but I recently read that availability of silicon for chip making is very low. Fabs have been running at such capacity all year that the shortages actually have started to trickle down to manufacturing materials.

 

[amghwk]

Nothing is worth more than the MSRP. No buying this year. No need to talk about gifting.

 

[paul1122]

I love how everything is blamed on the pandemic for being late, slow, etc. Has your take out food been slow? Has your grocery shopping been slow? Has your wine delivery been slow? lol

 

[dansharp2014]

Only one thing to do...Boycot scalpers..that encludes the major stores ...egg, ...zon that seem to be taking the lessons from the scalpers. I'd like to see the scalpers choke on their inventory!!!