TECH HÍREK – Sony is also trying to prevent wealthier people from hoarding PlayStation 5s on their home turf to avoid those who want to buy one of the limited-availability consoles for their personal use…

Yahoo’s Japanese website reported that the company explicitly asks retailers to unseal the box of PlayStation 5s in front of customers so that scalpers cannot sell the consoles as new. Although the topic first surfaced in news reports in the Far East a month ago, it has only recently reared its head in the West, courtesy of Reddit, so we don’t know how long Sony has been doing this with the packaging of the PlayStation 5 Standard Edition and the PlayStation 5 Digital Edition.

Sony is distributing a special “seal” to distributors in Japan. These are put on the console before it goes on sale. It is such an aggressive sticker that only retailers have the option of removing it without destroying the PlayStation 5 box. Anyone who tries to do this without removing the seal will have a difficult time, to say the least, and will also make a mess of the box. This solution will prevent the consoles from being resold as new (what scalpers do at a significantly higher price because that’s how they make their money).

The best way to prevent all this is by Sony itself. We only need to say two words: PlayStation Direct. This system is operational in several countries in Western Europe, but who knows when this service will be available in other locations. PlayStation Direct allows us to buy consoles directly from Sony so that we don’t have to look for them in shops (because the company cuts out the ‘middle man’ between the manufacturer and the player due to the direct-to-customer model) but can order from the company itself, albeit in limited quantities (due to the scalpers).

In any case, this is another clever solution from Sony. It could be applied elsewhere.

Source: PSL