When Microsoft hinted last week that pre-ordering the Xbox Series X and Series S would be a much smoother process than the PS5 pre-order debacle, it probably should have checked with retailers first. So far, Xbox pre-orders are an absolute mess.
The Game Awards creator and games journalist Geoff Keighley summed up Xbox pre-orders best:
My personal favorite was GameStop, which set up a “virtual queue” page for pre-orders that didn’t actually guarantee you a spot on the pre-order line but was instead a clever way to hide longer than usual load times to the homepage. According to Kotaku, this “pre-order queue” page eventually crashed, too.
Despite the fact that Microsoft made a point to let its fans know the time and date pre-orders would go live with several days’ notice, the process hasn’t been any more organized than when Sony warned people last minute that PS5 pre-orders were going live last week. Regardless of how these companies made their pre-order announcements, it seems that digital storefronts just can’t keep up with the demand for these next-gen consoles.
And it doesn’t help that supplies are reportedly very limited, especially on the PS5 side, due to manufacturing and shipping delays caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. Even when a site did work, such as in the case of Walmart, consoles sold out within minutes. If you managed to get an Xbox pre-order at Walmart today, you are one of the lucky ones. (I am one of the lucky ones.)
In a very rare instance of going off the marketing script, Sony apologized for its own pre-order mess last week, saying “Let’s be honest: PS5 pre-orders could have been a lot smoother. We truly apologize for that.” Sony promised to release more PS5 consoles for pre-order “over the next few days.”
It’s looking very likely that Microsoft will be forced to make its own apologies in the coming days as the Xbox pre-order fiasco continues to unfold. For now, Xbox fans have been happy to share their displeasure on Twitter:
The Xbox Series X and Series S are out on Nov. 10.
