PS5 Stock Increase Sees Reduction in Scalper Bots – Report
Increases in PS5 stock have led to a “slight reduction” in scalper bots targeting the console as we head into the holiday season. This is according to a Q3 2022 report from Netacea, a company that prevents automated attacks on businesses and storefronts. The PlayStation 5 dropped to fourth place in the report, marking the first time that it fell out of the top three in its series of Quarterly Index reviews. That said, Netacea still believes that the PlayStation 5 will continue to be targeted by bots.
PS5 still has a consistent resale value
Calling the PlayStation 5 a “poster child for scalping,” the Netacea report states that the PS5’s resale value has “largely remained consistent throughout the quarter.” It identifies the main culprit as cash-out services, which purchase the PS5 consoles from scalpers in bulk. This could be part of the reason why US retailers still sell 100,000 PS5s in under a day.
Resellers can still reap over $100 in profit per console, with the PS5 costing $500 and the aftermarket average price ranging from $613-675. Compared to the console’s resale value from last quarter, it’s only dropped 2%. With a current markup average of 29%, the PS5 will unfortunately continue to be scalped, the report says, like other high-value consumer electronics.
In better news, compared to the Netacea report from last year, the Nvidia GeForce GTX 30 graphics cards are no longer being scalped. Luckily, many graphics cards are “now being resold at close to or below RRP,” though the company is still concerned that the RTX 40 cards scheduled to release in Q4 2022 will bring GPUs back into the limelight for scalper bots in the near future.
