UK customers are still struggling to buy the PS5 amid scalping concerns

PS5
(Image credit: Future)

Customers attempting to buy PS5 consoles in the UK are still having difficulties getting their hands on the new hardware. 

Despite new drops arriving at retailers over the past few days, a large number of people have taken to Twitter to air their frustrations at missing out. Earlier today, Twitch streamer Graham Day said that "I feel for the many people out there that joined the Currys PC World queues before 8am this morning, lingered in queues for 1hr30, only to be booted out of line by the system." 

Accompanying that tweet are images that show that Day joined the queue at 07:56AM, and was still in queue 50 minutes later. Unfortunately, just under half an hour after that, he received an 'rejected queue number' error message, telling him he'd been bumped right to the back of the line.

Unsurprisingly, Day isn't the only person to have been affected by the queues of fans trying to get their hands on PS5 stock.  Twitter user anphi_x said they waited for more than 40 minutes only to be "redirected" to the back of the queue. The demand appears to be so high that it's even impacting those who aren't in the market for a new console. Another Twitter user said that they had only visited the retailer's website to buy a new microwave, but found more than 160,000 people ahead of them before 9AM, despite the store selling out at 08:46AM.

It's not just Currys PC World that seems to be struggling to keep up with demand. Earlier this week, a restock at GAME caused issues after one scalping group claimed that it had secured 2,000 more consoles. The retailer denied those claims, saying that it would be checking each order and canceling those that violated its '1 per customer' rule.

Difficulties in getting hold of a PS5 are far from unique to the UK. Worldwide, scalpers were said to have secured and sold on more than 60,000 consoles during launch month. Add to that the fact that replacements tend to arrive in limited batches and with little notice, and buying a PS5 starts to become very difficult.

If you're still looking, here's our guide on where to buy a PS5.

Ali Jones
News Editor

I'm GamesRadar's news editor, working with the team to deliver breaking news from across the industry. I started my journalistic career while getting my degree in English Literature at the University of Warwick, where I also worked as Games Editor on the student newspaper, The Boar. Since then, I've run the news sections at PCGamesN and Kotaku UK, and also regularly contributed to PC Gamer. As you might be able to tell, PC is my platform of choice, so you can regularly find me playing League of Legends or Steam's latest indie hit.

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