I many cases yes.

Most countries have laws against price gouging and market manipulation, so it is likely illegal but no one cares to bring a legal case for a piece of plastic entertainment.

Welcome to the real world

As someone who rigorously checks Wario64's Twitter everyday for stock drops, even got up as early as 4 in the morning to check all the store pages only to find they're all sold out of PS5s, I call bull, and I get up earlier than most with my med/sleep schedule. There's people who put in a lot more legwork than I did, refreshing each of the retailer pages hours a day and still coming away with nothing. Some of us even got lucky and managed to snag one, only to find the PS5/XBX pulled from our carts because of these botters/scalpers.

Plus have you ever stopped to think that some of us don't want to have to constantly refresh each of the store pages hours at a time every day only to have to deal with the bots and other LEGIT customers wanting one in the off chance we do get lucky and come across a live drop?

Again, they already do this and for good reason: it's illegal to scalp tickets (baseball, concert, whatever) and it doesn't rob you of nearly as much money as these console scalpers currently are.

And to anyone who thinks it'll end soon, I disagree with that. I could totally see this lasting until at least spring, if not a whole year or longer. The 360s sold out for months after their release, and they didn't have online-exclusive drops for scalpers to bot and hoard. That sold 1.5 million units by the end of its launch year, the PS5 sold that much in its first month, actually, more than that since Europe didn't even report their numbers yet. Bigger demand and artificially-deflated supply because of bots and scalpers ultimately means it's not going away anytime soon.

Yes, I agree with the whole spiel about "people being foolish enough to buy it insanely overpriced in the first place", but it doesn't change the reality of the situation. They're botting and hording off limited supply of a product that they didn't create for their own personal gain when even licensed retailers aren't allowed to do that in many states and avoid paying income taxes in the process, which is, in and of itself a crime, just ask Wesley Snipes.

This still has a long way to go to reach the level of difficulty it was to get a wii which had shortages that lasted for years.

I don't get why people say stuff like this. Like, don't you guys get how these things work?

It's not Sony's, Apples, Microsofts...etc business how ay country sets their labor laws. There is a reason everything is made in China these days. You think if Applecouldmaketheir products and pay workers a minimum wage equivalent to chinas minimum-wage in the States they wouldn't make them in the states?

The minimum wage in china averages out to around $200/month. That's set by their government. A company sets up manufacturing facilities (foxcom) and sony and co secure manuacturing contracts. If anyone is to be doing anything? it's the government, but there is a reason they don't.

Not saying this good, just saying if people are gonna take on this "woke" stuff...then point the fingers in the right direction.

Lotteries like Japan with using your ID :).

No... I don't think so.

I don't think it would be completely irrational for the government to make a law forbidding this, the government passes lots of laws to regulate certain markets, but I just don't think it's necessary.

Maybe someone with more tech knowledge can enlighten me, but I feel like more can be done to prevent sales to bots, or cancel sales after the fact. Stores can also allocate more resources to brick and mortar stores (obviously not a great option this year but in general). 

In general I view government intervention as a more extreme option that should generally be used when the industry itself can't or won't solve a particular issue. In this case, I don't think this is really in the industry's best interest, so I'd say they should work out a solution. 

Don’t rely on the Internet. Idk where you live but in ‘murica you can find them easily if you just put effort in. 

Also, none of that explains why it should be illegal to resell a physical item you bought and own for whatever price someone else will pay. At least in your example of a sports ticket or concert ticket, you aren’t really selling ownership of anything. In this case, you are.