No one likes scalpers. They buy popular products in bulk and resell them at a sizable profit, making it difficult for the average consumer to get their hands on hot items. In Japan only — at least for now — Sony is rolling out a creative way to combat scalpers, and it would have been great if we had the system in the West for the launch of the 30th Anniversary Collection.
As noted by Automaton, anyone wanting to secure a PS5 Pro in Japan must prove they're actually a gamer by filling out a reservation application. And it's not just some questions they can Google the answer to — potential buyers must have logged 30 hours on their PlayStation account on PS4 or PS5 between February 22, 2014, and September 19, 2024. If you don't meet this requirement, you simply can't pre-order the PS5 Pro.
That's not a difficult number to achieve. Playing 30 hours of video games over a decade should be easy for anyone planning to shell out $700 on a high-end gaming console for themselves.
It's not a perfect system to stop scalpers — many people who scalp consoles might themselves be PlayStation gamers looking for some extra money. If so, they would easily have 30 hours logged on their PlayStation account. Still, it might keep a few of the scalpers away from getting their hands on the consoles to resell them.
Of course, the PS5 Pro is still available for pre-order and not particularly hard to find. Therefore, scalpers would take a sizable financial hit if they bought many of the recently launched consoles (aww, poor babies). But it would have been wonderful to see Sony implement this system for the 30th Anniversary Collection, which sells for thousands on the secondary market.
