How Did I End Up With A PlayStation 5 For Christmas (Without A Pre-Order)

When my wife asked a couple weeks ago on what did I want for Christmas, my answer was the Sony PlayStation 5, which she prompted me to ask for something else, knowing that it was next to impossible to get one without pre-ordering in November (which at the time were totally sold out).

This wasn’t a big deal, since my answer was in half-jest; the console IS still proving to be a hard-to-obtain halo item this Christmas season and the initial line-up of games didn’t really warrant getting the new console for. I was pretty much consigned to the fact that there would be no new console this Christmas.

In any case, I happen to come across a ballot held by a local video games store chain, Gamers Hideout (GH for short) on Christmas Eve, for the chance to purchase 1 of eight PS5 consoles that they had. If the name sounds familiar, this was the store that got into trouble for a case of over-excessive bundling during the PS5 pre-order back in November.

As a bit of a background, GH got into trouble when their PS5 pre-order bundle included mystery game packs and 3rd-party accessories, bringing up the price of the PS5 (as part of the bundle) to more than RM 3,000. The issue blew up over on Facebook and the company released an apology, among other things.

The practice of bundling a whole bunch of stuff along with the console is quite common at GH. The one and only time when my wife did a purchase from GH, it was for a PlayStation 4 which she had to purchase Killzone Resistance and a bunch of 3rd party thumbstick button covers for the DualShock controller. Mind you this was during Christmas 2015; I had to get a friend (who runs Kyo’s Game Mart) to get me Fallout 4 instead.

Safe to say, my wife has gotten my Nintendo 3DS and Nintendo Switch from other retailers since.

Ok, so back to the ballot. The ballot itself was basically for the opportunity to purchase the disc version of the PS5 at the retail price of RM 2,299, and this was without the bundling nonsense that GH got rapped for earlier. Those selected would have to make their way to GH’s 1U outlet and pay and self-collect the console on the same day.

I thought it was no harm to try my luck and submitted a single entry through a Google Form. And I also recognized that this was one of last few opportunities to get a PS5 at retail by Christmas. This was in the morning on Christmas Eve when I was at the doctor’s waiting for my daughter’s test results.

I got home and received the call at around 4 p.m. that my entry was selected as one of the 8 customers to purchase the PS5 and that they would be contacting me again once they’ve moved the stock to the 1U outlet and then I can make my way there to pay and collect. After finishing my chores and cooking dinner for the kids, I got to the store at 8 p.m. to collect the console.

So there you have it: how I ended up with one of the last few available PS5s in Malaysia, without pre-ordering, and at retail price. The console itself is an absolute behemoth, dwarfing my PS4 (the original version), the Nintendo Switch dock, and is LONGER than my gaming PC which I had commissioned earlier this year.

I didn’t get any new games though, and I’ve been installing games from the PS Plus subscription. I’m looking forward to games like God of War: Ragnarok and perhaps CyberPunk 2077 once the developers get their act together.