#Sony apologizes to customers for PlayStation 5 pre-order fiasco

Sony apologized over the weekend for the botched rollout of PlayStation 5 preorders which saw some retailers make the game console available earlier than others, frustrating eager fans hoping to guarantee a release-day delivery.

“Let’s be honest: PS5 preorders could have been a lot smoother,” Sony said in a tweet which received more than 165 thousand likes and nearly 40 thousand retweets. “We truly apologize for that.”

The Japanese gaming giant said that it will make more inventory available for preorder “over the next few days,” and said that more consoles will be available to purchase “through the end of the year.”

Though preorders of the next-generation video game system were supposed to begin on Sept. 17, numerous retailers in the US and UK made their stock available on Sept. 16, causing a free-for-all which led the likes of Walmart, Amazon and GameStop to also jump into the fray a day early. Inventory sold out within hours, and gamers who tried to secure their PlayStation on Thursday found themselves out of luck.

Indeed, the demand was so strong that Amazon emailed customers who had successfully played a preorder that they might not have their PS5 delivered on its Nov. 12 launch date.

“You may not receive this item on the day it is released due to high demand,” Amazon said in its email, which dozens of buyers shared on Twitter. “We’ll make every effort to get the item to you as soon as possible once released.”

Sony last week announced that PlayStation 5 will retail for $499. A cheaper, all-digital edition of the gaming system, which doesn’t feature a disk drive and can only play downloaded software, will retail for $399.

Xbox, which is also releasing a new console to compete with PlayStation this holiday season, will begin taking preorders on Tuesday.

Shares of Sony were down 1.6 percent Monday morning, at $77.70.