This year’s new tech toys have been extremely difficult to get. They could be the PS5, Xbox Series X and S, or even new GPUs from both Nvidia and AMD. All of them are in extremely limited supply, and seemingly half of them have gone to scalpers. To make matters worse, it looks like there are plenty who are desperate enough to pay for the unwarranted premium.
According to TechSpot, Oracle endgineer Michael Driscoll wrote a script that scrapes eBay’s sold listings in the US for specific items. And based on the data, scalpers have made a profit of about US$39 million (~RM158 million) off of this season’s tech toys.
Breaking the numbers down for the consoles, the full PS5 netted scalpers are around US$14.7 million (~RM59.6 million) in profits, while the Digital Edition brought in US$4.3 million (~RM17.4 million). As for the Xbox Series X and S, they brought in US$8.6 million (~RM34.9 million) and US$1.5 million (~RM6.1 million), respectively.
You can check out the graphs and tables by following the link below. But overall, it’s a little disheartening that so many people are willing to pay so much more for what the products are actually worth. With that sort of demand, scalpers are definitely not going away.
(Source: Michael Driscoll via TechSpot)
