The weekend, and the local PlayStation 5 preorders, have come and gone. In a little as 5 minutes, smiles filled the faces of a select few, while most were left to lick their wounds and wait for the eventual restock. It happens, and because of the limited supply not only here but also around the world, the holidays will be a bit colder than usual for a lot of gamers.

Local preorders were, for lack of a better term, a fucking mess. Despite multiple retailers carrying the PlayStation 5, all of their online sites were down for either down or lagging because of the influx of traffic.

Gameline suffered a glitch which allowed their system to accept orders that went past their supply, forcing them to issue refunds over the weekend.

Game One PH had their share of problems too, but it was i-Tech who took the bigger hit, as they needed to resume operations on a Saturday. They had prepared, but not well enough, as the thousands of gamers spread over multiple retailers during the initial rush flooded their helpless site. Kudos to their socmed person though, thanks for being transparent throughout the ordeal.

Even Datablitz was not spared. Arguably the biggest retailer in the Philippines, they had their own share of problems, with their unique links firing blanks for a lot of hopefuls.

Let’s get back to Datablitz for a moment. While the mechanics were mostly similar across majority of the retailers, with the 5 minute rule and everything (except for Toy Kingdom), it has to be said that DB probably prepared for this the most. They knew the stress their website would go through during the preorder window was going to be massive, so they ensured that only the most critical steps of placing your intent and selecting a pick-up / delivery option was needed from the customer. Payment and all other miscellaneous steps to complete the PlayStation 5 transactions were done during a separate time. That was pretty cool of them to do, and while it wasn’t 100% problem free, that extra bit of care saved probably saved them from a lot of problems after.

Not taking anything away from all the other retailers because they handled the whole process as well as they could have, but there will be lessons learned. I’m sure if COVID wasn’t a problem, almost everybody would have gotten their own PlayStation 5, but that’s clearly not the case and there are shortages of supply worldwide, so you shouldn’t feel too bad about it. Indeed, play has some limits.

To those who didn’t get a unit, take the L. Come up with an temporary excuse to wash the pain away, the “I didn’t really want one anyways” is a personal favorite. Don’t curse out the retailers, they want nothing more than to sell you these units. You think it helps them if they keep the stock? That’s absurd. They’re only limited by how many PlayStation 5 units are in circulation at the moment. It may take a while, but soon enough there will be more stocks rolling in and the next thing you know, these things will be sitting on shelves just waiting to be copped.

To the lucky ones, congratulations! Welcome to the next-gen… Well, almost. The next 3 weeks of waiting will arguably be the longest 3 weeks of your life, but you can sleep well at night knowing you’ll be pulling a “Guidicelli” come December 11. Filing a leave? Calling in sick? Hopefully HR is none the wiser.

Of course, everything could have been better, but hey, that’s 2020 for you. The new consoles are here to stay and it’ll be taking a toll on your bank account for the next 5 or so years. It won’t go anywhere, and will be more than ready for everyone to enjoy, hopefully sooner rather than later.

In the mean time, chill and find something else to do, I hear Chess is quite the in thing these days.