The Sony PS5 just went for pre-order in India and was out of stock within minutes of it going live. This shows the kind of demand the console has in India, a demand which Sony in its own statement admitted that it had not expected.
And there are still many potential customers that could not get their hands on one of the console pre-orders. And, are now looking for when it will be back in stock. For those people there is an easier way to keep track of restocks on Amazon.
- Sony PlayStation 5 sold out in minutes during pre-order in India
- Sony PlayStation 5 Digital Edition India release is delayed
PS5 Telegram restock bot
According to a report by the IGN, a Bengaluru-based IT professional Shantanu Goel has developed a PS5 restock bot that will alert you when stocks on Amazon go live. He created a similar bot for when the Xbox Series X launched in India as well to be helpful to gamers.
When you add this bot to your Telegram, it will notify you when the console is back in stock on Amazon. But you would have to visit the website on your own to make the purchase. The bot does not provide a link yet.
Asked why he went with Telegram for this bot, Goel said, "Most devices require time consuming setups for near-instantaneous push notifications which Telegram can easily provide without doing any server side setups or bypassing firewalls. Even with a push notification set up well, most phones ‘optimise’ out apps so that becomes a pain. Telegram, being a messenger app will escape this optimisation clutch easily."
He also spoke of Telegram’s ease of use in comparison to other such apps, "It has the most extensive and feature rich/deep integration APIs, a very wide community support in terms of client libraries and modules, and yet is one of the most simple ones to get working,” he says.
“You can literally go from zero to getting a simple bot running in less than a minute using REST API if you want to, or spend more time using one of the many official/unoffical client libraries in various languages/platforms."
The Sony PS5 went up for pre-order in India on multiple retailers at 12 noon on January 12. And, barely a few minutes into the sale, there was none available. And none expected such a rush for the new console in India.
The previous PS4 console had around 4,500 units at launch had lasted about a few weeks before going out of stock. According to reports, Sony apparently had similar numbers this time as well for the PS5.
Sony commented on the situation saying, "PS5 has met with unprecedented enthusiasm by PlayStation fans in India, resulting in a stockout during the pre-order period. Keeping the current situation in mind, we kindly urge all customers to keep their health and safety first and refrain from visiting any retail store to pre-order a PS5. Please stay in touch with retailers for the next pre-order phase."
According to reports, sources familiar with Sony's plans believe that 12,000 to 15,000 units would have been appropriate for a pan-India launch. While there were some genuine buyers of the PS5 console, scalers got their hands on units as well. Some of these are already up on OLX for higher prices. It remains to be seen how the restocking of consoles take place in India.
