The Humbling Quest for a PlayStation 5: How A Hard-To-Find Console Taught Me About Love
disclaimer: this is a cheeky story. I understand that I am extremely privileged for a number of reasons that I’m sure you can ascertain from this story. This is a self-deprecating story about the people who helped and hindered my ability to get a PlayStation 5 during a time in which a lot of people were struggling to get one. I understand that many MANY people do not have the same opportunities as me, and that sucks. I’m grateful for the opportunities and the people I have in my life - and the story of how I got a PS5 actually helped me come to this realization. Please don’t hate me. Read on for the full story…
On November 12th, 2020, the PlayStation 5 launched.
It was a strange time for a console launch thanks to an ongoing global pandemic and a global semi-conductor shortage; both of which had an impact on the production of the console. The pandemic, however, had the largest effect on the consumer experience as the vast majority of console sales were relegated to online shopping.
This shit-storm is what made it so that despite being one of the most vocal supporters of PlayStation and host of the Dual Senses Podcast (a PlayStation podcast literally named after the PlayStation 5 controller), and being totally ready to sleep outside in the cold…
I COULD NOT GET ONE.
I would have gone to some extremes to get one too! I would have sold a limb off of my body! I would have stolen from a child! I would have prostituted myself! Really, the list goes on…
But, despite having would have done these things, I didn’t, because even I have moral standards.
Unfortunately.
And so, I went the rest of 2020 without the PlayStation 5.
But this started a quest for me - A quest for the PlayStation 5! One that ended with the unfortunate revelation that
In order to get a PlayStation 5, you must be extremely lucky, well connected, or both.
…and for nearly an entire year, I was neither of those things.
Part 1: F.O.M.O.
FOMO, or “fear of missing out” is a legitimate phenomenon that has a dramatic affect on my everyday decisions. Sometimes, I can fall into the trap of becoming a bit of a “yes man” simply because I don’t want to miss out on an experience - even if it’s one I don’t want to have. Often times, despite not having the funds to make sudden large purchases, I might still buy a new game because it’s new and I don’t want to miss out on being part of the conversation while it’s still fresh. My want for the PS5 was part PlayStation fanaticism and part FOMO.
Admittedly, the PlayStation fanaticism started to be overcome by the FOMO.
Leading up to the launch of the PS5 I would record episodes of Dual Senses with Alex and we’d talk about all kinds of news and announcements that would get us all hyped up on that good ol’ PlayStation high, but as talks of limited production and availability ramped up, we got a little worried.
And then launch day came.
“I’ll get one.” I would tell myself. “I’ll just go online when there’s a restock, and I’ll be able to grab one. It’ll be easy!” I kept lying to myself with wishful thinking.
Websites would crash and online carts would lie, claiming that the item was in our carts only to change it’s mind after you insert your payment information. There were waiting lists, multiple web browsers, online queues, bots, scalpers - you name it!
As I would stay up past midnight refreshing the online stores for Walmart or Best Buy only to go through the same process of false hope and stolen dreams I would feel more and more defeated. With each “This item is out of stock, please check back later” message I lost a little bit of my sanity.
Not too long after launch Alex was able to get a PS5.
~That fucker got a PS5 and I didn’t!
I was jealous. Angry. Unreasonable.
“You can come over and play it whenever you want!” he’d say to me, but it just wouldn’t be the same.
I knew I was being a selfish and ungrateful prick. But, goddammit I NEEDED a PS5.
So, I recruited Alex to help me.
and this fucking saint of a man did all that he could.
He would send me links to online stores and tell me when they were rumored to restock. He would stay up with me and offer to buy one on my behalf, so long as I paid him back. He was right there with me in the trenches despite having already won the war himself.
Despite all of his efforts, however, Alex was not the one who ultimately got me the PlayStation 5.
I still took him up on his offer though, and I would make frequent visits to his place. Him, Rachael (his fiancé and another close friend of mine), and I would stay up all night playing games like Overcooked. I even got a few PS5 platinum trophies despite not having my own PS5 console! (Astro’s Playroom, Spider Man Remastered, and Ghost of Tsushima respectively.)
These nights were a good distraction, actually. They showed me that I didn’t need my own PS5, especially when I had my best friends by my side. I love them! And that would have satiated my appetite for my own PlayStation 5 - if it weren’t for 2 things.
Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart.
I have often said on the Dual Senses podcast that not having a PS5 wouldn’t be a problem until Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart came out. On June 11th, 2021 - just a handful of days before my birthday - Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart released exclusively for the PlayStation 5. Reviews were impressed by the gorgeous graphics and particularly lauded the ray tracing and lighting effects while also praising the near immediate speeds of the SSD. This was it - the first PS5 exclusive that truly couldn’t exist on any other platform! But… I already knew that Ratchet and Clank was ultimately going to be more of the same, albeit prettier. There would be guns and explosions and Pixar-adjacent animation quality. I had, ultimately convinced myself that I didn’t need to play Ratchet and Clank immediately. And, so, crisis averted! That is, until…
Betrayal
I was B E T R A Y E D
Part 2: Betrayal
Anthony is my sister’s husband - My brother-in-law. And during the first year of the PS5’s existence, he had somehow obtained not one,
not two,
NOT THREE
BUT FOUR PS5s!
and the bastard didn’t think to sell me one
Let’s back this up a bit.
November 2020
Christmas is a big deal in my family. Everyone in my immediate family gathers together at my parents house and the tree is always surrounded by a barrage of gifts (usually for the youngest members of the family). I am the “elf” of the house, and I call out the names on the presents on Christmas morning and hand out the gifts to their respective recipients. It’s always a jolly, festive time with lots of yelling and laughter and sometimes crying - a true Marro Family Affair (tm)
Leading up to Christmas Day, there are discussions throughout the family about who wants what from Santa. Everyone is gathering intel on one another, and we’re all secretly shopping and helping one another give the perfect gift. It’s like a grand (not-so) covert-operation.
Surrounding the launch of the PlayStation 5, the console was the only thing my brother and I could talk about when it came to “pie-in-the-sky” Christmas wishlist items. My brother and I never really expected that we would be able to get a PS5 - after all, we knew all about the production issues and how difficult it was to get one, especially after the system finally launched. With that being said though, our pining for the PlayStation 5 was something that our entire family was well aware of, and probably annoyingly so. My mom (aka “Santa”) was even caught up in the fervor of it all. She would stay up all night refreshing webpages and she would send me links, much like Alex was doing, hoping that one of us could nab a system.
Part of those conversations was Anthony. He would ask questions about the PlayStation 5 and the various games for the system. He would specifically come to me, the resident PlayStation Expert of the family. (I even have a “PlayStation Expert” shirt. I’m basically as official as you can get.) The excitement for this system was not only palpable, but it was infectious.
Christmas Day, 2020
Come Christmas Day, there were many gifts - most of which for my nieces. However, there was no PlayStation 5. Which is absolutely fine! We never expected this impossible-to-find system to make its way under our tree. Despite the lack of the PlayStation 5, Christmas was an astounding one (as always). “Santa” always goes above and beyond, leaving traces of magic everywhere.
We were all happy campers.
And I would have maintained total satisfaction if it weren’t for the days after. Because it is during that time, between Christmas Day of 2020 and present day, that Anthony would obtain FOUR PlayStation 5’s.
The Birth of a Scalper
Anthony makes the most money out of everyone in my immediate family. He’s a hustler and keeps busy with quite a lot of work. He’s admirable in that sense, and he definitely earns every penny that he makes. As someone who makes a decent amount of dough, he also has the most expendable income. This combination of things can lead to spontaneous purchases - usually for his 3 (soon to be four) daughters and his wife, my sister. All of that is absolutely fine. However…
One spontaneous purchase happened to be a PlayStation 5 system that he bought from a scalper. For those of you who are unfamiliar, a scalper is someone who buys up a scarce product and then resells it immediately for a higher price. Following the launch of the PlayStation 5, scalpers would use bots to buy up nearly all of the stock of PS5’s online and then they would resell the system for, sometimes, upwards of $1,000. (Though, it was more common to find the system for $200-$300 above market value.)
This put quite a price tag on the system, and made it difficult for many people to afford right out the gate. Admittedly, if a few hundred dollars changes whether or not you can afford a video game console, you probably shouldn’t buy one in the first place, but we live in a world in which video games can sometimes be the only emotional escape we can get - especially during a pandemic.
To make matters more specific - during COVID, many people lost their jobs and relied heavily on unemployment and/or relief checks from the government. There were, however, some lucky individuals who were able to keep their main source of income while still benefiting from government relief checks. This meant that certain individuals had a large amount of excess income, which allowed for some higher-than-usual spontaneous spendings.
For Anthony, the PlayStation 5 was one of them.
And I was happy for him; Jealous, but happy! We talked about how great the console was and how cool it was that he was able to get one!
And then, shortly after he got one, he decided that he didn’t want it anymore.
That is, also, a perfectly reasonable decision, and one that he was most certainly entitled to make. My personal gripe with this isn’t the decision that was made, but it’s with the decision that wasn’t made - Because Anthony decided not to reach out to me and see if I would be willing to buy it from him.
No.
Instead, he would sell it online. For higher than market value.
Anthony became a scalper.
Rapid Fire Betrayals
This would have been forgivable if it had only happened once. But, not long after selling his first PS5, he would buy up more and sell them - often trading them for other high-value items. The PlayStation 5 became a strange form of exclusive currency in which he could buy whatever he wanted -so long as folks were still having a hard time finding a PlayStation 5.
And there were always folks looking for the PlayStation 5.
Myself included.
So much so that I would often talk about this search for a PS5 on my podcast, Dual Senses. Alex and I would have a running gag where we would shit-talk scalpers, and we’d often end an episode with the phrase, “Fuck Scalpers!” Little did I know that my very own brother-in-law was one of them this whole time!
It wasn’t until later that I found out, and I was, admittedly, heart broken. Especially when he knew how much I wanted a PlayStation 5. I was hurt that he never asked me if I’d want one, and I’d be willing to pay for it too! No… instead, he used them as currency for other things.
I can’t blame him though. I honestly can’t. But it still hurts.
Regardless, his scalping phase came to an end (at least, for now). With his fourth PlayStation 5 purchase, he decided to keep it. He still plays it from time to time in his free time. I’m honestly glad that he has one, and that he’s using it. That’s how these things are meant to be.
But, the consistent teasing of having one right under my nose the whole time - the fact that I was helplessly searching (and failing) and he had the power to end my suffering at any moment - that stings.
Shortly after that revelation, I felt even more defeated. And I had essentially given up on it.
I just wasn’t meant to have a PlayStation 5, and I had to accept my fate.
Part 3: When You Least Expect It
I had stopped looking. I had stopped trying. It felt futile.
I had decided to spend my time without a PlayStation 5 playing through my backlog on PS4.
I was in the middle of playing Gravity Rush 2 when my phone went off.
New Message From Chris
Chris is a friend of mine and was one of my college instructors that I kept in touch with. We had gone to comic conventions together and even a protest. He’s a cool guy, and also a big nerd. (Yes, those two things are not contradictory) And on Sunday, October 17th, 2021, he sent me a message.
“Hey, did you ever get the opportunity to buy yourself a PS5? I recently bought one for my son but now he says he wants a gaming PC instead. So I’m planning to either sell it or return it. But I thought I’d check with you first to see if you were still wanting to buy one.”
My heart started racing. I reread the message to make sure my eyes weren’t deceiving me. My hands were shaking as I typed my response.
“Yes! I’m willing to buy one!! Fuck yes!!!”
He had paid $550 for it after taxes and shipping and handling. He told me he’d be willing to sell it to me for $600. I figured this was reasonable, and I knew the extra $50 would go towards his sons Christmas gift of a gaming PC, so I accepted his offer.
There was only one problem.
I didn’t have an extra $600
My mom was texting me and I was telling her how Chris had made that offer to me and her response was like that of a mob boss. She simply asked:
“How much?”
When I told her it was $600, she said, “If I do this for you, then this is your Christmas present. This is all you get.”
I weighed my options, and I accepted those terms.
Suddenly, a notification appeared on my phone:
$600 was deposited into your primary checking account.
Holy fuck.
My mom is a badass.
The very next day, I went to Chris’ house and we made the exchange. $600 for a PlayStation 5.
It felt unreal. It all happened so fast I didn’t even get the chance to tell my husband about it! I was in the middle of setting up the system at home when I messaged him and told him that I was ordering pizza and that he should pick up some cake on his way home, because today we were celebrating a special surprise.
And when he walked in the door, he saw that HUMONGOUS system on our entertainment center. He was in disbelief just as much as I was. “Y-You got the PS5!?”
Yes.
We now have a PlayStation 5.
And you bet your ass that the first game I played on it was Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart.
~Conclusion~
And that was the end of a year-long quest for what seemed to be an unobtainable item. I’ve only had the PS5 for a handful of days, but when I play on the console, I can’t help but reflect. My first thought was:
“I had next to nothing to do with getting this system.”
Really, this isn’t a story about how I got the PS5. This is the story of how everyone around me is a hero. Yes, even Anthony.
Anthony, despite having the ability to provide a PS5 to me the entire time, did the smart thing. He understood that the system was valuable, and he used that understanding to provide for his family. What he gained by “wheelin’ and dealin” with the PS5 was even more expendable income for him to treat his family - His 3, soon to be, 4 girls, and his wife. Sure, it meant that I didn’t get a PS5, but he has a family to take care of. The fact that he prioritized them is pretty fucking amazing!
Chris remembered how obsessed I was with PlayStation. When I was in college, I would often talk about PlayStation games and how much of an impact they had on me. I would take any excuse I could come up with to incorporate PlayStation into my school projects and essays, and it wasn’t uncommon for me to lug my PlayStation 3 with me into the classroom so that instructors and students alike could play games like Flower or The Unfinished Swan. After graduating, many of my conversations with Chris revolved around PlayStation and different game recommendations for him and his son. I was honestly touched that he had remembered me when he was getting rid of his PS5. He could have very easily sold it for $700+ online.
Alex was there with me from the beginning. Whether it was sharing the hype of the PS5 pre-launch, hosting Dual Senses alongside me, or even helping me stakeout online in hopes of grabbing a console. He was always looking out for his friend even though I absolutely did not deserve it. And even when he did have a PS5 system of his own, he wanted to share that experience with me. The time that I spent hanging out with him and Rachael playing the PS5 was awesome! My first time feeling the haptic feedback of the Dual Sense was when Rachael wanted me to feel what it was like walking through water in Bugsnax. My first time really coming to grips with the adaptive triggers was when Alex let me play Astro’s Playroom. The two of them were there when I obsessed over getting the platinum trophy for Astro’s Playroom. They suffered through watching me attempt, fail, and re-attempt the time trials for the game.
And, most importantly, the real MVP of this story -
Mom. Video games have never quite resonated with my mom in the same way they do with me. But, for as long as I can remember, she has supported my favorite hobby, and I can’t stress enough how important that has been for me. Back in the day that meant surprising me with Nintendo 64 games every so often - and she always had a knack for finding real bangers like Diddy Kong Racing, Mystical Ninja, and Mischief Makers! As I grew older, and my interest in video games grew up too, she fueled that love, and she would listen to my ramblings about how cinematic and revolutionary games like Indigo Prophecy were. I remember the day that Heavy Rain came out on PS3 she slipped a note into my backpack that said “Happy Heavy Rain day! Your game will be waiting for you at home after school.” And, here she was, coming in clutch with $600 for a PS5. I know that she doesn’t have to do these things. She wants to do these things, because it’s something that’s important to her son. This is something that she does for everyone in our family. I can’t help but think about Christmas Day throughout the years. There would always be magic. The house would be decorated. The tree would be surrounded with presents. Even, to this day, I still thank Santa out loud for any presents, but I’m sure to look at my mom when I say it.
But this year will be different.
This year, I won’t have any presents under the tree, and I’m okay with that. But the PlayStation 5 isn’t really the present I received this year.
No.
I said before that I learned that in order to get a PS5 you had to be extremely lucky, well connected, or both. Even though I said that I wasn’t either of those things - I lied. it turns out, I am lucky.
I’ve been privileged to have such good people in my life. I’ve had the honor of having amazing games to play. I tell people regularly that PlayStation has saved my life, and that’s a story for another day, but even now, I can’t help but think that it’s not really about the games we play or the console we play them on.
It’s about how our virtual experiences can reveal things to us about our real life experiences.
And through all of this, I’ve learned that there are amazing people around me who are all infinitely more deserving of a PlayStation 5 than I am. In fact, they’re deserving of so much more.
I cannot stress enough how lucky I am to have them in my life. To all of you, whether you’re mentioned in this story or not -
I Love You
Let’s play some games together some time
