Famitsu sales: Week 29, 2021 - (July 12 - July 18)

[The_Liquid_Laser]

curl-6 said:

The_Liquid_Laser said:

What really needs to be factored in is scalpers.  

I've come to the conclusion that 2020 created far more scalpers than we've ever seen before (and worldwide too, not just Japan).  We had this perfect storm where brick and mortar retailers had to close while demand for video games was skyrocketing.  Also a lot of people were unable to work.  That was the perfect climate to create scalpers. 

Last year, the Switch would have had shortages even without scalpers, but I do think scalpers made it a lot worse.  This year, I think the PS5 is in the same situation.  There would be some shortages anyway, but scalpers are making things a lot worse.  I expect next year the Switch OLED model will be the device to be heavily supply constrained.  Scalpers need to move on to the next hot device.  Then in 2023 there will hopefully be no hugely in demand hardware and a lot of these scalpers can die off.  Until then, I think we are going to see every shortage magnified as scalpers try to take advantage of any type of shortage or scarcity there might be.

I am worried this may become the norm from now on and that it will be impossible to get a Switch 2 for the first year or more of its life.

More needs to be done to stop preorder bots and other scalper tools.

The simple solution is to buy from brick and mortar retailers.  Scalpers can buy from there too, but it's not nearly as easy for them as buying online.  If brick and mortar retailers diminish or go away, then we'll be especially susceptible to scalpers.

Last edited by The_Liquid_Laser - on 24 July 2021