Everyone saw this coming but it was still disappointing to see. Fans were salivating over the 30th Anniversary PlayStation 5 collection, a one-two punch of nostalgia and neat aesthetics, when it was revealed earlier this month. Today many of them stared blankly at PlayStation Direct pre-order screens as they watched them sellout while they waited in confusing online queues and battled glitched website buttons.
The 30th Anniversary collection went up for pre-order earlier today and it turns out the limited edition PS5 Pro bundle, only 12,300 of which were manufactured, wasn’t the only thing that felt impossible to get. Pre-orders for the PS1-style PS5 slim bundle, PS Portal, and DualSense controller also disappeared almost immediately, begging the eternal question of why Sony doesn’t just manufacture as many of these items as people want.
I queued up at around 8AM on one device and it got in straight away, the rest were stuck in queues
— Tom Warren (@tomwarren) September 26, 2024
Panic began overnight when anecdotes began pouring in from Australia and the UK that pre-orders, which became available at 10:00 a.m. local time in each region, began to immediately disappear followed by reseller listings popping up on eBay for anywhere from five to 10 times the suggested retail price. As the 30th Anniversary pre-order hour approached in the U.S., people tried to load the PlayStation Direct page early only to be thrown into a queue with estimated wait times of over an hour.
I did have a PS direct page that said it would put me in a random spot in the queue, but now that is gone and I just see "shop preorders" with no info about the queue or PS5 Pro. On desktop, I have the "line is paused" thing with no promise of getting in queue?
— Grubb (@JeffGrubb) September 26, 2024
The initial confusion was compounded by the fact that Sony never really gave fans a clear idea of what to expect from the pre-order process. After unveiling the 30th Anniversary PS5 collection it just said they would be available to buy starting September 26 with no advance notice of an official start time or even the prices. Essentially how it worked is that people who tried to order from PlayStation Direct were put in a waiting room to get a random spot in line at which point they could order whatever was still left, which for most people, including myself, seemed to be nothing.
30th Anniversary PS5 slim is already sold out on the PlayStation Direct store and I assume it won't let me add the DualSense or PS Portal to my cart either because those are also already sold out pic.twitter.com/FnTMdFXuXQ
— AmericanTruckSongs9 (@ethangach) September 26, 2024
Was that because I didn’t get into the waiting room sooner? Or did I just get a bad place in the queue? Was there a better way to go about this whole thing? There were anecdotal reports of people getting to the store only to be tossed back into the waiting room. Once they were in the store, it was still confusing trying to buy stuff. Even items that didn’t show as sold out, like the PS1 DualSense controller, couldn’t be purchased when clicking “add to cart.”
Situations like this PS5 30th Anniversary Collection drop are perfect examples of why we switched from limited quantities to an open preorder model.
No stress, no virtual waiting rooms, no queues – and no bots to fight. When you want something, you can get it.
— Josh Fairhurst (@LimitedRunJosh) September 26, 2024
It seems like people who just wanted the $80 controller actually had more luck going through retailers like Amazon, Best Buy, and GameStop, whose pre-orders for the PS5 controllers when up at the same time as PlayStation Direct. Those sold out fairly quickly as well, however. It’s possible that additional stock will be released in waves, as Sony did when demand blew supply out of the water with the original launch of the PS5. But I’m also not sure why Sony doesn’t just try to sell as many of the PS1-style controllers as possible, at least for those who order in the next couple of months.
It’s the cheapest option for fans wanting to be a part of the anniversary hype, or just really love the idea of channeling all those nights they spent in front of their original PS1 in the modern era. Maybe Sony was just testing the initial demand and will come back later with a bottomless Santa Claus bag of 30th Anniversary PS5 stuff come the holiday. If not, 30th Anniversary PS5 DualSense controllers are already going for up to $200 on eBay
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