During our isolation, our past few months never before has gaming been such a good time killer. Being cooped up in our house isn’t that fun, especially if you have nothing to do. So many people were looking toward the release of the PS5, Xbox series X, and, although not a gaming console, the Nvidia graphics card 3080 which is an upgrade for your graphics if you play games on your pc.

The way you would get one of these new consoles or devices is if you go to the company’s website, hopefully, manage to get a preorder in (first come first serve), and then be on your way out. 

If only that’s what happened

For many people going on to the website at the time of release, they were lucky if the website loaded for them, as countless people were flooding to get these new pieces of hardware, but were they actually people…

I’m sure you are familiar with the term, scalper and if not a brief definition is: 

• An individual who gets a large order of a new product and resells them for double or triple the price on other websites (mainly eBay, Amazon, etc.)

For many of these products especially the Nvidia graphics card, a lot of them were scooped up by scalpers and are now being resold for double or triple the price. By 2020 people expect these websites to be better protected by bots and other things have that nature but in reality, there was no defense.

The only piece of hardware that had a somewhat successful pre-order was the PS5 and that was because they accidentally put up the preorder earlier on accident so the scalpers were caught off guard. Then again many people missed out since they didn’t even realize the PS5 was put up for sale.

So far, almost every preorder for the new hardware coming out this year has had complications or the hardware was scooped up by scalpers.

Now imagine being one of the lucky few to get your hands on the new graphics card. Well, there are reports of the cards being damaged and not even being packaged safely. Keep in mind these are 700 dollar graphics cards. That’s no to mention all the bugs and glitches they contain.

I wish I can say that if you went with the console route you were smarter, but turns out it’s just as bad. Many people who preorder a PS5 and X box series X are finding that their pre-orders are canceled due to the companies selling more than they ever have. 

2020 is definitely not a good year technology-wise, many people, and myself included, think that they should have delayed all-new tech for 2020 until COVID has ended and manufacturing has improved in 2021.