The English retailer Box has introduced a new method for anyone who wants to order the Xbox Series X in December. It will be decided by a drawing.
The availability of the new consoles Xbox Series X and PS5 is currently the big topic in gaming. Many people are waiting for online retailers to finally receive more stock. One such retailer is Box.co.uk, who plan to use a different method for their upcoming sales waves in December.
Here’s how the sale at Box will work: On their online site, Box announced that new allocations of the Xbox Series X will be available on December 7 and 14.
To have a chance at the coveted console, buyers must register in advance. They need to provide the following information:
- Email address
- full name
- gender
- date of birth
The registrations will then be collected by the retailer and entered into a drawing. Those buyers who are drawn will receive an invitation to purchase the Xbox Series X. This is intended to ensure more fairness in the sale.
Box did not specify in the statement on their site how many new consoles they will actually receive. Therefore, it should be assumed that certainly not all potential buyers will have a chance at an Xbox Series X.
However, the drawing will take place well before Christmas so that the consoles can end up under the Christmas trees of the lucky winners.
What is the point? During the previous sales waves of the new consoles Xbox Series X and PS5, there were regular instances where the retailer sites could not handle the rush of buyers. Even the giant Amazon crashed.
A lottery for console purchases, for which one must register in advance, would certainly prevent overloads on Box’s servers. Buyers also won’t have to be at their PCs at a specific time to spam F5 and hope to get through.
However, whether this will be a good measure against bot buyers is hard to predict, as they can still register with multiple accounts for the lottery.
But also popular fan items or other types of events are sold via lotteries. This included, for example, the tickets to the Fan Festival of Final Fantasy XIV in 2016.
The current situation regarding new consoles
This is the situation in Germany: The Xbox Series X is also a scarce item here. On December 1, the console was available again at OTTO, but was completely sold out within minutes. The console is sold out in Germany.
The situation is similar for the PS5. The third sales wave of the Sony console caused online shops of various wholesalers to crash.
However, there are still quite a few units of both next-gen consoles available on eBay. They are being resold by groups of bot users at extremely high prices, profiting from the scarcity of goods and the extremely high demand:
- That’s why you didn’t get a PS5 – Bots are buying 3,500 consoles away
- After PS5, nasty bots are now grabbing 1000 “Xbox Series X” consoles
The prices for such consoles on eBay go up to 2,500 €, which has angered some fans.
Do you find Box.co.uk’s system fair? Would you like to see it with German retailers as well? Or is it nonsense and will not prevent bot buyers from grabbing up huge quantities of consoles again?
