Perhaps these are not the androids you are looking for.
If you’ve tried unsuccessfully to track a PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X in the past few months, you’ve probably wondered if the whole system is manipulated. The prevailing wisdom holds that scammers are using bots to accumulate video game consoles and make predatory money from innocent nerds.
It turns out that professional scalpers aren’t as big a factor as you might expect, according to an intriguing new analysis of the secondary market for the new PlayStation and Xbox consoles. A surprising proportion of vendors – around 40 percent – sell only one or two consoles on platforms like eBay, StockX and OfferUp, making them more likely to be a new entrepreneur who was lucky in a fall, rather than a professional scammer .
Beginning in December, Michael Driscoll, a computer science graduate student with a focus on machine learning at Georgia Tech, used a data scraper to gain insights into the high-spec computer component resale markets before returning his attention to PS5 and Xbox. The project was born from a mixture of practicality and procrastination.
“I’ve been wanting to update my computer for about a year, due to the intense work I’m doing at school,” he explains. “I started doing this because I had a final exam that I didn’t want to study for!”
Inverse talked to Driscoll about his data collection process, his advice for anyone looking to get a next-generation console and what the next few months might look like for the secondary market.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
So, what exactly is a data scraper and how does it work?
Basically, I wrote a simple little robot that would go through eBay and copy all the listings, with prices and sales dates. It’s basically like going to eBay and searching for something. Instead of copying and pasting in Excel myself, my little script just copied and pasted everything for me.
Do you already have a PS5 or X Series?
I do not. Basically, I gave up because it has been very difficult. I don’t have time to watch Discords and stock out all the time.
What major differences do you see in the secondary markets for PS5 and X Series?
So there are basically three markets that I looked at for each one: eBay, StockX and OfferUp. EBay is by far the easiest to obtain data. Their prices are the highest, but they have national distribution.
StockX charges fees almost as high as eBay’s, but its prices are consistently lower. I believe this is because StockX makes it easier for users to see what is the lowest overall selling price.
I only recently learned about OfferUp, which is essentially a more beautiful Craigslist, with a better mobile interface and nicer images. It is also a competitor of the Facebook Marketplace. There are no intermediaries or fees, so prices are lower.
Are people still willing to pay more for a PS5 than for an X Series?
Really much. The PS5 is currently costing $ 800 for the digital version, $ 850 for the disk version. The S Series is costing around $ 450, and the X Series is going for around $ 700.
Why do you think more buyers choose the PS5 drive model over the digital one?
Looking at my analysis, the difference between PS5 and digital disc prices is $ 50, but the digital PS4 is going to 200 percent of its MSRP, and the disk drive model is 170 percent of MSRP. It tells me that people just would you like a PS5, no matter what model it is.
What would you advise someone looking for a PS5 or Xbox?
Unless there’s a game you really want to play – and for me there aren’t enough exclusive games yet – just wait. There is no real point. I suppose everyone’s backlog on PS4 is still huge. Just play the games you already have, and hopefully in a few months there will be more to offer.
Did your analysis give you a clearer idea of how sophisticated money changers operate?
I saw some retailers reselling on eBay for an appointment. These are sites that I know have connections with manufacturers to get these things at a discounted price.
This is not to say that bots are not a problem. There are bots out there, for sure. I saw a bot that you can put on your personal machine and run to buy something on Amazon as soon as it’s available.
But the main thing is that people know that there will be a delivery at 5 pm on Tuesday, and you have 100,000 people trying to buy at exactly the same time.
You notice that a significant number of resellers have sold only one or two units. Did that surprise you?
It was a little more than I expected. I expected the money changer market to be worse than it is.
I expected there to be a few giants out there selling 90% of the goods, but there are a lot of people just trying to earn extra money during these difficult times, and I don’t necessarily blame them for that. That’s when you start to see people selling something like five or ten, when it’s like, okay, that went beyond just trying to earn a few dollars.
See the complete analysis of Driscoll’s PS5 and Xbox resale markets.