PS5 restocks at Currys as rush for new PlayStation takes down websites

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

Currys has put up new PlayStation 5s for sale – and then immediately been hit by technical issues and large queues.

Even those who got onto the website early were shown a message indicating they were behind tens of thousands of others in a queue.

That showed for everyone visiting the website, not just those who were looking for the PS5, meaning that the Currys website was entirely inaccessible. “Huge demand has meant we need to place you in a short queue,” a message told anyone who tried to buy anything from the company.

While some of those people are likely to be real people searching for consoles, the numbers are also sure to include vast numbers of automated systems that have been buying up the PS5 and then selling it on at inflated prices.

Others were not even able to see the queue, instead seeing a message reading “Technical Error 500” or “Service Unavailable”, informing them that the website was not working properly.

Currys is offering a range of different options on the PS5, including bundles with games such as Sackboy, Cyberpunk 2077 Miles Morales and extra add-ons including a year-long PlayStation Plus subscription.

But they all appeared to have been hit by technical problems and large queues.

A message on the queueing page included a warning presumably meant to lower expectations on which and how many consoles would be available.

“We now have limited PS5 stock. We’re NOT selling Xbox today," it read.