Do you think you'll be able to just buy one this year?

At this point, the PS5 is coming up on its two year anniversary, and you still can't buy one for love nor money.

When do you think you'll be able to just go on Amazon and buy one?

Given that COVID is still raging and seriously impacted China to the point where some companies are moving production of chips elsewhere, that the Russia/Ukraine situation has had a lot of effects on various important elements of the supply chain including gasses needed for microchip production, and everything else going on I think the answer is no, you're not going to be able to just order one whenever you want by the end of 2022.

I do think that at this point if you decide to spend significant time hunting for one you can get one in a month or two of consistently checking Twitter, especially if you're willing to swallow the price of a bundle (that's how I got mine in January 2021.)

I check deal Twitters like Wario64's fairly regularly and I have sometimes clicked through posts for available PS5s to see if I could get one (I don't want to buy a second one, of course, I'm just curious as to how difficult it would be to do so) and I've had a couple more opportunities since I actually got my system where I could have bought another if I'd wanted to, so it's not impossible if you put in the work.

Not saying that's how buying a video game system should be, of course. It shouldn't.

I still maintain that if you want one, just put HotStock on your phone and wait until you get a notification during some free time. I had it for all of a month last summer before I got a PS5 from Wal-Mart. Out of curiosity I kept it installed and continued to get pushes what seemed like once a week or so for a couple months.

As for the classic walk into a brick and mortar and scoop one off the bottom shelf to carry back to the front desk? Sounds like a fantasy that may very well persist for this entire generation. Especially if either of these companies follow through on mid-gen refresh models.

This year? I doubt it. Early next year? Wishful thinking. Estimates I've head from journalists about normal availability and pricing in 2024? Seems reasonable.

Besides, with my luck, everything I'd want will also be on PC anyway.

I got one the other week as soon as I actually looked. Couldn't find one on it's own but I got a bundle with an extra controller, charging dock and Horizon FW Disc from a UK retailer and had it delivered next day. Think I payed £612 total, not a bargain but not unreasonable.

EDIT: Checked the site and they haven't got shit anymore, guess I got lucky. Definitely recommend checking bundle availabilty though.

I was lucky enough to get one during the launch weekend last year off of PS Direct. From what I've seen, people who want a PS5 bad enough, find a way to get one. It took Jan a while, but he finally found one for himself. Hopefully, this will finally be a thing of the past next year and everyone who is interested can get one. Because this is also holding back developers from really taking advantage of what the PS5 is capable of, because they still have to develop their game for PS4 owners.

i can't guarantee my experience is going to be the same for everyone- but i registered in mid-january 2022 with the sony-run direct purchase lottery, and within 5 weeks or so i had a PS5 at MSRP.

if you're talking about casually walking into a best buy and just easily grabbing one of the shelf? the bots won't allow you to do that anytime soon.

I was lucky to get one a year ago from my local GAME. I don't know if Gamestop or whoever would hold stock for you in reserve. That's how I snagged mine. Turned up one week, told them to be put my name against one of them and stock came in the next week.

Seems like that's what stores should be doing, at least to keep scalpers out of the picture.

In my country prices are so inflated that it is most an issue of "how can I justify getting a PS5?" instead of "where can I find a PS5?"

Brick and mortar gaming stores all have some PS5 available, and you can just walk in and get one. Few people do, because they all charge you over 2 grands for them.

@mellotronrules said:

Yeah, with minimal effort I got one the same way in January 2021. In addition, looking to my broader friend group (all based in the USA, for what it's worth), everyone who wanted one now has one and got them all at MSRP. I think if you set your mind on getting one and spend a little time setting up online alerts, it's far from an insurmountable task. But if you're just casually looking around and hoping to stumble upon one in the wild for a reasonable price, it's still going to be quite a while.

I can't speak to first-hand purchasing, but late last year I was checking eBay prices and there were a few for around £20-50 above retail. I went for one and the experience was good. It felt like people were just trying to offload stock at that point, but the global economics have probably reverted that situation, as bigsocrates said.

I still don’t think you’ll walk into a store and buy one no.

But as mentioned above it’s not terribly hard to buy one otherwise. It was a week of lazily watching NowinStock and then I got one from Walmart.

I got lucky with a Wario64 heads up on a Walmart drop. I had to get a walmart membership to be allowed to get it. The process took about 2 weeks of having twitter alerts on, which was annoying because fuck twitter. It's not ideal, but it wasn't nearly as hard as folks made it out to be.

Now that I have one, the bigger problem is actually using it. Not in that it's hard to use, as in there is very little to play on it. I had already played more of my PS4 backlog, and the PS5 games you can count on one hand, so those are done too. At least I was able to sell my PS4 to offset some of the cost, but at this point, I kinda have buyers remorse as I do most my gaming on a PC hooked up to my TV. And with more and more Sony stuff coming to PC, I think PS5 might be my last non-nintendo console.

All this is to say, even if Best Buy gets them on shelves and they stay there long enough that you could buy one, I'd pause. If it's gonna be your only gaming machine, then sure. If you have a decent PC already, or a PS4 Pro, you really don't need it. The exclusives just aren't enough to justify the purchase and there aren't really much more on the horizon.

Like other people have said, they have quite honestly never been hard to get if you're actually willing to put forth any effort above the bare minimum of randomly checking Amazon once every two or three weeks and then pouting about it. I managed to buy four in the first month and a half they were available (for me, my brother, my girlfriend, and my girlfriend's sister) just by checking sites when Wario tweeted them.

Yes, it sucks that you can't go into a store and buy one, but the reality is that demand still outstrips supply, and supply is going to continue to be constrained, so that isn't likely to change any time soon. They sold slightly more PS5s than PS4s in each console's first year, and slightly less PS5s than PS4s in each's second year, so the narrative that 'there aren't even any out there' or whatever is also just completely bunk. You can get one if you actually try.

Definitely not in countries outside the US. All those drops and lotteries etc. are all US-based. I spent a chunk of time waiting in the Sony direct purchase line, got in, then got told they wouldn't sell to me in Australia.

Every store here will be out in the time it takes me to click a link saying that they're finally back in stock. At this point I'm thinking of just buying myself a nice uhd bluray player and upgrading my some parts of my PC instead - especially given there still aren't any exclusive games I'm interested in so far.

I found a pretty reliable twitter account to follow in my country. Myself and about 6 other friends all got ours through that guy. I don't know who he is, but he definitely has the inside track on when stores here are going to put their allocations up for sale online.

I live in a pretty small country though so I doubt it'd work well for bigger ones.

I don't think you'll be able to just buy one off a shelf for retail price for at least another year.

I have a friend in America who has been trying to get one all this time and just a few days ago gave up and got a new PC instead.
He was even in an online queue at one point and had a chance but hesitated and lost it, lol.

PS5 stock is starting to show up at the local Best Buy stores more regularly now. I've seen them have PS5s in stock twice in the last month or so. Yesterday they had them in stock for a while. I thought about going and getting one but decided against it for now. The same Best Buys often have the Series X stock now too.

Getting PS5s online still seems impossible though. I check the stock trackers once in a while and it's been over a month since Amazon Canada had them and Best Buy had bundles in stock for like 5 minutes one day and that's it.

At this point of my life, I think I'll be able to get one someday, When the right time has come -- let's say that I know my priorities in life. But someday I will get my own Ps5 and enjoy playing this.

Oh you can buy them in my country most places now. That I can't afford to buy one since I'm a broke AF student is another story.

Had one been available at launch, I would've happily bought one. I'm not much of a Sony fan these days with their censorship policies, and outside of the new God of War (which you can play on PS4, btw, alongside everything else they put out...), none of their first-party output interests me. But hey, I knew I was gonna need one eventually for some sort of timed-exclusive Square Enix game.

Instead, I got myself a gaming PC in December of 2020 when I could still get a 1660 Super at MSRP. Got myself an Ultrawide monitor to go with it, and they've served me well. Since then I've bought not one, but TWO Steam Decks! Yes, my transition to PC gaming is complete now. And guess what? GPU prices have actually come down again, so I'm thinking of maybe grabbing myself a 3060 Ti or whatever.

Did I attempt to buy a PS5 in the past year and a half? Sure, I signed up for Sony's official waiting list program, but since I've been completely inactive on PS4 these past few years, they rejected me. Yeah, no shit, I'm not using my PS4 because I want a PS5.

Meanwhile, you're guaranteed a Steam Deck if you're just willing to wait half a year. Meanwhile, you can get yourself a gaming PC at a fair price. Meanwhile, the Xbox Series S has been readily available through this entire debacle, and runs all the same games the Series X does.

If something like Kingdom Hearts IV ends up being a PS5 + Xbox Series simultaneous release, guess what? I'll just buy a Series S and deal with the lower framerate.

Right now I just can't see a scenario owning a PlayStation this generation, or possibly ever again. It would have to be as simple as visiting an online store of my choice, and hitting the buy button. Or, Sony could get back to me on that waiting list I signed up for like a year ago, which isn't gonna happen. I'm not gonna line any scalper's pockets, and I'm not gonna jump through any crazy hoops to get one.

I’ve already accepted that this is another Wii situation and it’s going to be a while before you can just walk in a store and pick one up. I have yet to ever seen a PS5 (or Xbox Series X) sitting on a shelf.

Personally I'm no longer interested in buying a 2-year old console at launch price even if it were available. They'll have to come up with some better offer, whether it's a price cut, a free game included or a bigger hard drive at the minimum.

For what it's worth, The Xbox Series X is available at several retailers here in Europe.

To be honest, I thought I wouldn't be able to buy a PS5 this year. And the most important thing is that this is not a gift to myself, it's not me who wants to buy a game console for myself, this is what my girlfriend wants to get for the new year under the Christmas tree. However, 2 weeks ago I was lucky enough to find a ps5 in a local store, I just went in and they brought a brand new ps5. No one even had time to notice it and pick it up, I immediately ran to the checkout! In addition to this gift, I also ordered flowers in bulk from https://fiftyflowers.com/collections/carnations and now I will definitely be able to surprise my girl for the new year.

Yes, it's currently in stock at several retailers in my country so we know the answer to OP's question. Although they only stock bundles so if you're not interested in God of War or FIFA then you're not getting a good deal.