Games retailers have been overwhelmed by demand for the latest Sony PlayStation console, which launched in the UK on Thursday.
The rush for the Playstation 5 – which in non-pandemic times would have sparked midnight queues and camping outside high street stores – caused the entire John Lewis website to crash for nearly two hours. The department store apologised to shoppers and blamed “extremely high levels of demand” for the technical issues.
Web pages dedicated to the launch of the PS5 at Tesco and Game also crashed on Thursday morning. Currys introduced a queuing system, with tens of thousands of customers waiting in a virtual line. Amazon also experienced site problems under the weight of traffic.
With much of their stock sold in advance via pre-launch orders, Game, Currys, John Lewis and Argos all sold out of the £449 console by 10.10am on Thursday.
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