The hottest items this past holiday season were easily the new generation of consoles that included the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X/Series S, all of which sold out of pre-orders immediately and have been near impossible to acquire ever since. With a very enticing launch lineup that included Demon’s Souls, Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, and more, the PS5 has been the most wanted of the bunch, which has made them very hard to find. Due to COVID-19, stores have been selling consoles online only for the most part, which has allowed bots to steal a lot of them too along the way. That’s why two months after release we have come up with a guide updating you on restocks for the console and some tips to help you get one, but just know that things are going to be very fluid when it comes to restocks and we will update when new information is out.
To start, we’ll give some tips on general retailers to look out for and some tactics to help you keep an eye for when the systems go up. When it comes to the PS5, there are plenty of retailers that are selling the console. The only problem is actual stock, meaning you can’t just go to an Amazon or Best Buy and purchase one outright. For those that aren’t going to go to the trouble of setting up alerts that we’ll discuss in a bit, the retailers worth keeping an eye out for are Best Buy, Target, GameStop, Amazon, Walmart, and one that you very well may not have heard of known as antonline. On top of those, Sony themselves have sold PS5 directly as well that you can try for.
The best way to try and snag a PlayStation 5 is to get one when they randomly go up rather than try to go for one when new stock is pre-announced. This is because if they are announced before hand, that means that you will have a lot more competition out there between actual buyers and even more so bots. If say Best Buy randomly puts up stock for a PS5 though, not as many people will know and you can take advantage of this if you know the right tricks.
When it comes to this, your best bet is going to be utilizing Twitter alerts on certain accounts. For a more broad account, @Wario64 is still the cream of the crop when it comes to gaming deals, but he also tweets out whenever PS5s go up for order online too. His account may be a little difficult to have an alert for because of the number of tweets he puts out, which is where some other accounts can come in handy. @PS5StockAlerts is a really good account that focuses exclusively on PS5 stock being available, so this is a good one to keep an eye on. Wario64 might still be the quicker one just based on his history, but you don’t have to weed through the other tweets if you use the other.
Setting up Twitter alerts is easy too that will send them right to your phone by following the account and hitting the little bell icon with a plus sign. You will need to make sure you have notifications turned on and such, but this is the most surefire way. Sites like NowInStock and Zoolert used to be good for this, but they seem to be on a lag more often than not anymore, making the Twitter alerts the best option.
The day this article was originally written, Sony tried something else besides Playstation Direct by selling them through PlayStation Rewards. These immediately sold out, as Sony stated a day ahead that they would be putting them up, though they didn’t specify a time besides being the next day. Dell also put up a restock of consoles online that was announced beforehand that sold out immediately as well. This is why the pre-announced ones can be trouble.
Moving forward, we will be updating this article with any information of upcoming restocks that are announced or teased for the rest of the month. Hopefully this will help you land that PS5 you’ve been wanting.
1/15 – Sony Rewards (SOLD OUT)
1/15 – Dell (SOLD OUT)
1/19 – Kohls (SOLD OUT)
1/19 – 1/22 – Target stores rumored to be receiving stock one of these days, but you still have to order for pick-up online for Disc and Digital.
1/21 – Gamestop will be putting systems up for sale online at some point on Thursday, January 21. (SOLD OUT)
1/21 – Amazon (SOLD OUT)
1/21 – Best Buy (SOLD OUT)
1/21 – Walmart will have PS5 Disc and Digital up at 3 pm ET
