In mid-June, Sony’s Andrew House said that PS4 demand “may well outstrip supply.” It only took about a month for that to become reality at one of the largest game retailers.
Game Informer reports that GameStop has stopped taking PS4 preorders. Here’s the full statement from the retail chain:
“Due to high demand for the system, GameStop is not currently taking additional store reservations for the PlayStation 4.”
As you may have noticed, GameStop only says that it’s no longer taking in store reservations. Unfortunately, the situation is no different online as GameStop’s Web site also says that it’s sold out.
What makes this particularly interesting is that GameStop opened the flood gates last month when an internal memo said that Sony was allowing the retailer to take unlimited preorders. The memo, if legitimate, made it clear that Sony was confident in its ability to deliver this holiday season. Now it appears that Sony is making sure that it can actually deliver by cutting off preorders before it gets too ridiculous.
Of course, GameStop isn’t the first to stop taking launch system preorders. Shortly after the PS4 was made available for preorder, Amazon stopped taking preorders for what it called the Launch Edition. It’s still taking preorders on Launch Day bundles and a Standard Edition, but the latter won’t be available at launch.
If you desperately need a next-gen console at launch, you can still preorder the Xbox One through GameStop. Microsoft is ditching its restrictive DRM through a day one patch, but you still have to deal with the more expensive price tag and required Kinect sensor.