For as much hype and build-up that both the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 have gotten from Microsoft, Sony, and the rest of the gaming world, fans expected there to be enough consoles to order online. Due to the COVIV-19 pandemic, a lot of retail markets have resorted to only stocking the consoles on their online websites. Because of this, it was certain that there would be enough units for the high demand of online orders, right?

No. Unfortunately, both Microsoft and Sony have failed to meet the supply-and-demand on an online-only market for their consoles. It was a bad sign in October when pre-orders for both consoles led to scalpers claiming most of the consoles online, selling them for double their actual cost, For most fans, online websites such as Walmart, GameStop, Best Buy, an Amazon were sold out seconds after the consoles were listed. Many websites faced server issues and crashes minutes after the orders were placed.

People thought that more drastic measures would be done to secure consoles for the fans themselves, and not the scalpers. Unfortunately, on November 10th, when the Xbox Series X and S released, the same thing happened, Websites were sold out early due to the high supply-and-demand, and million were left out of a console. Some websites limited users to only purchasing one console at a time, but that didn’t stop scalpers from creating multiple accounts and beating the system.

Some retail outlets like Best Buy have announced that they won’t sell consoles in their retail stores until 2021. Until then, many gamers might feel left behind against the bots who were able to snag the consoles as soon as they dropped. You can head to eBay and see the ridiculous amount that people are selling the console for, and it’s disrespectful to Microsoft and Sony. Both companies have promised that they’ll be restocking in the upcoming weeks, but unless these retail websites have better security measures against bots and scalpers, people may not be getting their hands on these consoles for a while now.