Retailers cancel PlayStation 5 pre-orders without a game

Image: Sony

Obviously, at least some retailers are required to purchase video games when offering PlayStation 5 models in advance. They pass this pre-order commitment in part. It is unclear if this requirement will carry over to large networks in the future.

The PlayStation 5 has generated a lot of hype with numerous pre-orders. Demand, at least for the time being, significantly outstrips supply which could lead to disappointment at the moment as well as a thriving informal consoles trading between private individuals at the time of release. And it is currently putting professional traders in a position to do so.

PlayStation 5: Dealers cancel pre-orders without a game

First of all: the fact described here is essentially about the smaller retailer. However, since this dealer has confirmed to us that the relevant specification comes from the wholesaler or Sony. The situation should also affect other dealers. However, we were also told that special shipping conditions are mostly not unusual and exist exactly the same as for the PlayStation 4.

The wholesaler, or Sony, obviously requires dealers to purchase one Sony-released game for each console shipped. This requirement is probably not due to a separate ordering process, but to the total number of consoles supplied. In at least one case, the retailer will now also pass this specification on to end customers and requests. Retrospectively to an already confirmed pre-order – to pre-order one of the four games, otherwise the pre-order of the actual console will be canceled.

It is currently unclear if this practice only applies to wholesalers we are not aware of from our source. Or if Sony itself is responsible for this. It is also unclear if other retailers will pass this requirement on to end customers. It is possible that larger retailers, and in particular mail-order companies, will be better able to meet this requirement than smaller retailers and therefore not have to pass it on. For customers, the situation is at least unsatisfactory if none of the headers to be pre-ordered match their own preferences and the console is pre-ordered accordingly.

Sometimes PS4 saved games are not compatible with the PlayStation 5

It’s still interesting to see how enjoyable the PS4 to PS5 upgrade. It is obvious players need to leave some memory levels behind. All indications, for now, are that the Xbox Series X and Series S will be slightly more usable.

Sony has not yet officially confirmed anything about the PlayStation 5’s backward compatibility, unlike Microsoft. The Japanese company has so far only assured that “99 percent” of all PlayStation 4 games will also work on the PS5, but sometimes they are displayed much smoother and at higher resolutions, as is the case with the Xbox Series X, or whether they are displayed at all. The ability to run patches at 120 frames per second is not clear yet.

For many customers, it will be even more interesting to see if saved versions of PS4 games can be transferred to the next generation console. This question is apparently not easy to answer because it seems to be game-dependent. As an RG studio that built a lower Tweet Score below, at least Yakuza: Like a Dragon doesn’t upgrade to the next generation version, although it works for Xbox Series X.