Buy the PS5 and Xbox Series X — if you can: Best Buy’s site struggles with restock demand

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Today may be your last, best chance to score a PS5 or Xbox Series X or S before Christmas. The next-gen consoles went live at Best Buy at 6 a.m. PT (9 a.m. ET), as teased by the retailer yesterday — and the site promptly buckled under the demand. As with Walmart and other retailers earlier this season, the preplanned inventory drops have been creating such demand that the retailer sites either crash or become effectively unusable. Best Buy’s site was showing “We’re sorry, something went wrong” messages on many of the product pages for the consoles in question shortly after 6 a.m. PT.

Just before 10 a.m. PT (1 p.m. ET), CNET was able to confirm that the Best Buy website began selling at least some of its PlayStation 5 stock to at least some users though you had to be both quick and lucky to get through checkout. Despite yellow “add to cart” buttons appearing, Best Buy’s app was giving pop-ups advising shoppers that in some cases it couldn’t add the item to the cart and that more inventory would be released “every few minutes.”

The pop-up added a “tip” that if you can get it into the cart go to “checkout quickly because it will sell out soon.”  

Is any inventory for the PS5 or Xbox models still available? It’s unclear, but here are the links to the company’s pages for all four consoles if you’d like to try your luck.

Sony

Picking up the disc drive version of the PS5 may cost more in the beginning, but it does allow you access to cheaper games at retail.

Sony

If you prefer the convenience of digital games, the PS5 Digital Edition is the way to go.

Andrew Hoyle/CNET

It’s missing the grunt of the Xbox Series X, but this console is cheaper and looks much nicer. Great as a secondary console, or for folks who just want to subscribe to Xbox Game Pass.

Dan Ackerman/CNET

On paper, the Xbox Series X is the most powerful of all the next-gen consoles.

Despite going on sale over a month ago, the new PlayStations and Xboxes remain incredibly difficult to find. Best Buy’s tweet announcing that it will have more stock on Tuesday was retweeted over 1,600 times within 50 minutes of going out. 

Has anybody actually been successful in buying one yet today? Based on anecdotal (and unverified) screenshots on Twitter like the one below, it seems like at least a lucky few made it through:

Is there any stock still available at Best Buy today? We have an inquiry out to the retailer and will update this story when or if we hear any specifics. 

Read more: Sony PS5 vs. Microsoft Xbox Series X: The best new game console for holiday 2020

Now playing: Watch this: PS5 vs. Xbox Series X: the ultimate comparison

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Read more at GameSpot: PS5 and Xbox Series X/S will be in stock at Best Buy on Tuesday

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Originally published on Dec. 14. Updated with the current state of the sale.