Why don't other companies take Panic/Playdate's approach to pre-orders?

Specifically, not limiting pre-orders and letting people put their money down with the guarantee that you will eventually receive what you paid for?

Not sure I've seen any other company take this same approach, that unless I'm missing something, benefits everyone. Thinking about the PS5; I would have loved the ability to just plonk my money down and wait, rather than having to battle scalpers.

What am I missing? Does this generate less hype/press or something?

Retailers

@falloutraven: yeah that’s a big part of it. Although I’m still surprised that either the big retailer haven’t set up their own backorder system or Sony/MS just says “fuck it” and set up their own system at the expense of retailers. Are they really that scared of physical retailers given a long enough timeline?

The vast majority of PS5 & Series X consoles sold are not going to scalpers c'mon they've sold 16m, demand is just naturally higher.

Thats how it went with GPUs though. People paid £2500 for a 3090 and sat for months waiting for it. Bollocks system that only benefits the people selling the product.

@alexw00d: Did it? Where? The MSRP of a 3090 is £1399?

@altdimension: The MSRP is yes. But when every single stockist realised they had WAY more customers than they did units, they ramped the price up hugely. The cheapest 3090 a cursory search shows me now is still £2000, nearly 10 months after release.

@alexw00d: Ah. Oh yeah on Amazon they start at £2k - yikes.

What I'm suggesting would see the likes of Nvidia just keep taking orders for e.g. 3090 at that £1399 price and fulfilling orders as they come from the factory.

So you'd pay the MSRP and then wait until it was your turn in line to receive one.