Argos down: PS5 fans still struggle for consoles as stock near-impossible to find

Andrew Griffin
Monday 23 November 2020 07:34 EST
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Argos’s website has gone down, leading to excitement amid an ongoing scramble for PlayStation 5s, despite the fact the outage was unrelated to the new console.

Users were unable to get onto the website or its app on Monday morning. Instead they saw an error message indicating that the company is “just fixing something” and that it would be back soon.

Argos said that the outage was the result of a “technical issue" and that it was unrelated to the PlayStation 5 release. But it nonetheless led to a flurry of speculation as fans continue to hunt for new stock, leading the word to trend on Twitter.

“The Argos website was temporarily down for approximately an hour this morning due to a technical issue," a spokesperson said in a statement. "The website is now up and running and customers can place orders for home delivery or click and collect.

"We apologies for any inconvenience this may have caused.” 

The PlayStation 5 launched on Thursday morning amid very positive reviews but some negative reaction to the stock issues. Players were not only unable to buy the consoles but even to get much information on when they might be able to do so, with most UK retailers entirely out of stock as their websites crashed, and consoles selling online at vastly inflated prices.

Ever since that release date, retailers have indicated that more stock could arrive, and it seems to be coming quietly and unpredictably. That has led to certain stores becoming focal points for fans desperate for even a hint of where they might be able to buy the console.

That appeared to have happened to Argos on Monday morning as the outage became the catalyst for a flurry of speculation on whether the company might have stock.

Speculation was further increased by the fact that Argos did not actually have any consoles available on the release date, but promised that more would be coming later. It had emailed customers the day day before the launch warning them that it did not have stock.

It had suggested, however, that customers would be informed of any stock refreshes before they actually went live, suggesting that Monday morning’s outage could be unconnected.

“Unfortunately, we won’t have any stock tomorrow but we should have some more arriving soon," it wrote on Wednesday. “We’ll let you know (in advance) nearer the time with the full details.”

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