Microsoft’s new Xbox consoles sold out across all major American retailers within minutes of preorders going live Tuesday morning.
Demand for the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S systems crashed the preorder pages of Amazon, Walmart, GameStop and Target shortly after being made available. It even took down Microsoft’s Xbox ordering website.
Gamers hoping to get their hands on one of the new Xbox consoles were met with an error screen on Amazon, while Walmart’s and GameStop’s pages didn’t even load due to the traffic.
Repeated attempts by The Post to reserve a unit at Target saw this reporter reach the checkout page, only to have the site refresh to an empty cart.
A Twitter search for the “XboxSeriesX” hashtag brought up hundreds of results from frustrated gamers who were unable to find any way to secure a preorder to receive the console ahead of its Nov. 10 launch date.
“Maybe don’t s—t on the competition if even your own store link doesn’t work,” IGN’s John Davidson wrote, referencing the PlayStation 5’s disastrous preorder period last week, which saw some retailers make the system available a day early, causing all the rest to follow suit.
Microsoft posted tongue-in-cheek tweets about Sony’s debacle ahead of the Series S and X preorders.
The two video game giants are going head to head this holiday season, with both releasing their first new consoles since 2013.
Sony is selling the PlayStation 5 for $499. A cheaper, all-digital edition of the gaming system, which doesn’t feature a disk drive and can only play downloaded software, retails for $399.
The new Xboxes comes in two versions, the $499 upscale Series X and the stripped down Series S, which costs $299.
Shares of Microsoft were up 1.1 percent early Tuesday afternoon, at $204.85.
Share this article:
Source: Read Full Article