PS5: Why Curry’s seems to be selling new PlayStation console for £2,500
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Curry’s PC World appears to be selling the new PlayStation 5 for £2,500, five times its usual price.
But the offer is actually a technical fix intended to allow people who pre-ordered the console when they opened last month.
Anyone heading to the PlayStation 5’s listing on the Curry’s website will see what appears to first sight to be dramatic price-gouging, given the usual £450 listing price of the console.
But a note on that same page indicates that customers who have a “discount code” will be able to buy the console with the extra £2,000 knocked off. “This product is only available to priority pre-order customers with a valid discount code," a message reads.
Further information stresses that anyone who does actually pay up the £2,500 for the console will not receive one. Instead, they will be refunded within a few days.
“ Please be aware only pre-orders placed with a valid unique code will be fulfilled," a message reads. "All other orders will be cancelled.”
That discount code is actually the way that Curry’s is ensuring that priority customers who have paid a deposit for access to the console are able to buy it. If they have paid that £5 deposit, they will be issued with a unique code that has the value of £2,005 and can only be used on a PS5 – in effect bringing it back down to its normal price.
That scheme has actually already ended: the latest that Curry’s customers could use the code was 26 October.
But the listing is still online – and is the first thing that comes up if people search for the PS5 in either its normal version with the disc drive or the digital edition without one, potentially leading to confusion and anger among customers who have been searching intently for listings of the new console.
Pre-order allocations for the PS5 sold out almost immediately after they opened last month. Sony has apologised for the confusion that came alongside that process almost immediately, and promised that more consoles will be available “through the end of the year”.
“Let’s be honest: PS5 preorders could have been a lot smoother,” it wrote in a tweet. "We truly apologise for that."
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