We should also make huge, inflated profit margins illegal for companies then. I don't see how people buying products and reselling them is worse than companies like Apple, Beats, or any number of fashion designers selling wares that are cheap to manufacture for a huge premium.

I dislike scalpers as much as the next man, but the ones stupid enough to pay crazy prices are perpetuating the problem. I'm extremely fond of gaming, but I could never consider buying a console for double price or more, it's absolute madness in my opinion.

Thanks for bringing this up. I was going to write a standalone thread about this. Last time i brought this up i was considered Trolling by many, people don't want to here the reality but this needs to be addressed. Its ruining the industry and making sale numbers inaccurate.

Scalping is nothing more than a greedy take away, it should be banned, unless its a rare case where someone buys something and no longer wants it and the demand is extremely high, but doing this in bulk should be illegal. There are many people have bulk stock of XSX and PS5s that they have in warehouses waiting for a catch. These consoles never really sold out, they were just moved from one hand to another. 

Hope you don't get reported for this thread for bringing this up.

I also posted that exact same video of Rich in another thread. 

You don't sound upset, but I'm upset (or at least I'm just as upset) because your reasoning is implying poor countries themselves are the source of their own poverty, when in reality our poverty is much more a byproduct of an global economic system who demand the least industrialized countries to submit themselves into a subservience regime for companies born in richer countries at least until those poorer countries manage to produce their own source of wealth 

A very good instance of this in South Korea  they are rich now, but it comes at the cost of very low salaries to their citizens during the 60's, 70's, 80's and even 90's

Trying to explain better:

Poor countries have no choice but keep wages low and remove taxes from big industries/companies with they want those industries to stabilish and create jobs in their countries, otherwise those same companies would just go away and find an even poorer country to explore cheap labor 

You step trying to paint China (and every third world country) as the responsible for low salaries when in reality we have no choice but accept lower salaries THE INTERNATIONAL MARKET IMPOSE TO US if we want any chance to see foreign industries here. As we can't grown our own competitive industries, at least not when we still poor

Need to point that China is another thing that I despise entirely: A borderline dictatorship where citizens have almost no saying whatever economic policy state decides. Still, I understand what lead the state to make their citizens cheap labour as the country was under poverty line in the 80's they made desperate decisions to lead economy growth, but they were not responsible bu the low income of their citizens and their citizens were already low income in first place

China now has enough money and their own local humungous corporations, so they can afford working on better working laws, but since we are talking about a fucking dictatorship those spcial advances will come much slower than in other east asian countries 

I've written this elsewhere as well but this is a classic microeconomic problem.

I know nobody wants to hear this but price plays a rationing function. The supply and demand for these consoles are such that the markets will only clear at a higher price than what the manufacturers describe as "RRP". Just like how rent control leaves some lucky people with an artificially cheap apartment, and many others with no apartment at all, so launch prices lower than market prices benefit people at the front of the queue and harm the people at the back.

Looked at another way, the problem is that retail price is not actually the market price. The market price at launch (aka shadow price in this context) is somewhere between $500/£450 and the scalper prices at $700+

How to solve?
1. Manufacturers could price their consoles higher to begin with, so people who value them most buy them, and drop the prices after launch period constraints are over.

2. Secondly, retailers should be allowed to price consoles. We reach ridiculous "scalper" prices of $700+ because 90-95% of the market (the retailers) is artificially forced to move at $500. The scalpers are the only ones, which I'm just assuming are 5% of the supply, allowed to adjust prices, and so are able to fairly neatly price discriminate on all the people willing to pay very high prices. If retailers were allowed to compete on price, 100% of the market would be sensitive to demand.

-> given that the scalpers price is driven by the MOST price insensitive types, real shadow prices would probably be not much higher than current RRP, probably $550 or so would be enough for the market to efficiently clear. Im sure Sony/MS can afford an econometrician to discover these shadow prices.

Both above methods involve the exact same shadow price. By attempting any solution except the two above you make the situation worse. By banning scalping you leave those at the back of the queue unable to get a console by any means, even if they value it at $800+.
Much of the upset that comes about scalping comes from the fact that the "middlemen" are being rewarded for providing nothing of tangible value that the manufacturer didn't already. Both of these solutions move this revenue from the scalpers to the (1) manufacturers or (2) the retailers.
Happy to answer questions on this point of view.

Wait... can't retailers charge the price they want ?

First option falls into a PR problem I guess. Microsoft and Sony both tried in the past and the outcome was disastrous 

For many things retailers can, but no the manufacturers have strict rules for consoles and for retailers that don't follow those rules can be consequences, such as no or greatly reduced inventory in the future.  Sometimes they can bend the rules with bundles.  One reason for the strict rules is they typically have smaller margins for the retailers on the console compared to other products.

It's a PR problem because they don't know how to deal with it properly.  If they don't give people a heads up then people are upset when the price drops, and if they do they risk loosing a number of sales from those ok with the higher price.  It also makes it more difficult for stores when their is a price reduction but these days they should be able to track the inventory and the manufacturer should be able to keep the stores from holding the expense of the higher cost inventory that suddenly drops in price.

Not banned by law, but by contract with the manufacturers. They lose their partnerships if they do that. The best they can do is add loads of filler to bundles, like hats, t-shirts and knock-off charging bays to boost the price. 

Yeah lets go after people amongst us making a bit of profit but not from those that do not have the money needed.
Those effected by this either do not care because they have the money they can miss or are stupid, and you just need a tad of patience.

No one is"IMPOSING" anything on anyone. Lets make this simple...

As a company, you want to make your product at the lowest possible price. This improves your profits and also give you a competitive advantage. This means that you would seek out countries that have the infrastructure to make your products, while also costing you less. So you are no gong to make your stuffing NA/UK...etc because the minimum-wage there is very high. So you find somewhere that its cheaper. Don't forget, doing this also means that those high minimum-wage countries lose out on the job having such a manufacturing plant would have brought.

So say I am sony. I want to manufacture the PS5. I have two options, I use an assembly company in NA and each unit costs me $100 to make. Or I use a company in china, and each unit cost me $20 make. Now mind you, there is also MS, they are also making consoles too, and they are faced with the exact same dilemma. I am not the one that sets what the company in china pays its workers, that company is just giving me an option.

Its a simple math problem at this point.As far as me being a company is concerned.

It simply is NOT my business how that company is able to give me such low manufacturing rates. All I care for is that its legal. If they raise their prices too high, and it costs me more or just as much to make the products in my own country? Then where do you think I would make them? And you think the countries that keep their minimum wage low but invest heavily in infrastructure doesn't know this?

You are asking companies to do what? Not compete because they want to force governments to change their labor laws? Seriously?

Ok..how about this... if you walk into store. And you see two IDENTICAL PS5 consoles. Identical in every way. But one costs $499 and the other cost $599. With the only difference being that one is said to be made in china and the other is said to be made in the USA... which of those two SKUs do you think will sell more? And that right there is the hypocrisy in arguments like these.

And again, I am not saying the labor laws are good. But I am saying that in an open market, companies would always find the best and most cost-effective ways to bring their products to market. And it is not on them to change labor laws. And the countries that have the infrastructure to make these products for these companies, don't change their labor laws because they want to continue receiving business from those companies as they know that if they do,those companies would just go to somewhere else.

I could care less, i'm not the one buying from a scalper, not my money, not my problem.