I think most of the prolific scalpers have the means to return them to the stores, even rotating stock so the return period doesn’t lapse. This is different than non-refundable items like sports or concert tickets, the “no risk” element is part of the reason they are attracted to these items. I think a more recent case is scalpers hording some Pokemon card sets from Costco. They are going right back if they can’t flip them.
Im ashamed to admit i looked into this a few years ago. You can return at a low level, but those scalpers arent the problem, loading on credit means no returns
Interesting, some examples of the process here?
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Nothing burger on my part. It wasnt consoles but it was hardware and some bitcoiner bulk ordering under different people. It wasnt exactly illegal but very much against store policy so definitely not returning those.
I dont want to pretend i have some amazing insight, though. The real side of it im sure is bots or like you said unkown inventory.
Oh, yeah there is probably stuff like that going on but I don’t think that is common. I think some of the players are legitimate smaller retail outfits ordering inventory directly from the manufacturer and then selling like they are an individual on the internet. They then create a fake buyer from their legit store and pocket the extra money.
If anything with these consoles they don’t need to sell them at a loss because they can just return them without a receipt to any number of places after Christmas when they relax return policies “it was a gift” returns. It usually goes to gift cards, but those just get put towards the next item(s) to scalp.
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Pretty telling seeing the GP COD upgrade right up there
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Death Stranding looks insane. Therapeutic af.
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Games that did well on PS will do well on Xbox and vice-versa lol.
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Does anyone else’s Bing app on Xbox now just redirect you to Edge? It’s been doing it for weeks but I’ve waited as it’s happened once or twice in the past on the preview rings.
Bing AI tells you the app isn’t retired but it clearly is - and if Xbox / Microsoft are going to do this stuff I really wish they’d hold off until their testers / insiders are happy they’re replicating the same functionality.
Edge does have much of the same stuff - you can hit the Rewards button to see the daily sets, you can check the background image of the day and get the blurb on it and you can search “on this day” to get the 4 boxes of interesting historical facts.
But it’s a pain in the ass - much of it requires using the stick to move the cursor (while on the old app you just moved between boxes) and if you go into anything such as a set it closes the menus so you have to do it again.
(Also the quiz often doesn’t pop up).
It’s much worse for accessibility, takes way longer to use and it’s such a poor user experience I’ve stopped doing any of the 3 bits I mentioned above on my Xbox - instead using my phone or PC / laptop.
Who signs this off? You’d think their QA testers would flag the poorer experience overall (and poor digital accessibility which is a big focus of MS) and suggest some Xbox-focused controls were added to Edge ahead of this retirement.
The Bing app still exists on phones so it doesn’t seem they’re killing it off completely so why the Xbox version grr - it was by far my favourite way of accessing Bing…
I’ve reported a problem on Xbox in the hope they’ll do something, but I’m not hopeful
Also really getting fed up with the gaming media saying we need to keep politics out of gaming (we all may agree with the general gist but practically everything is political to someone) then using their own politics to bash something.
A classic example is Forbes complaining about “modern terminology” in Dragon Age: The Veilguard when trying to “both sides” an argument and lecture the developers.
What the fuck are they on about? It’s a magic fantasy land not a historical setting in our world - the only people who decide what vocabulary exists in that world are the developers and owners of the IP ffs.
Not linking to the article as don’t want to give it more clicks or cause some usual suspects to argue their views (PushSquare and IGN comment sections in particular are a hellscape for so many games now) but more wanted to point out how silly it is for supposedly “prestige level” gaming media irresponsibly using imaginary worlds to back up their arguments to try and hide their own leanings…
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Regarding looks I remember first when I saw on PS4 being floored by how good the mountains & rocks looked
Insane since the series has always used modern terminology.
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So since last week I go to the gym and do stuff like strength training and also Pilates.
Today I spoke to someone who works there, we talked about all kinds of stuff including gaming. He’s a big gamer too, so I had to ask, are you on team green or blue? Most of the time in my country it’s always Playstation this and PlayStation that. He however is a Xbro! He said he can’t imagine not having Game Pass anymore, and even though he has a PS5 too, he didn’t sound too enthusiastic about it.
He asked me what genres I’m into, and after I told him I highly recommended him RDR2 and he said he already was planning on playing it. When I said it’s kinda not just a game, it’s a way of living for a few months he said it’s right up his alley.
Always great to meet a new Xbro. 
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The map in this game always cracks me up. The US of A is the size of Iceland and also shares the same biome 
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Nothing burger???
Reminder that gamers just want games.
The GTA streak continues!
Just finished The Ballad of Gay Tony, which just remains a fantastic expansion all around! Now it’s time for a second story playthrough of V.
After that, I’ll finally get on with the backlog, lmao.
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I always think it’s BS when people say it’s a Playstation game or Xbox game. The PS and Xbox market is very similar, and only difference is Playstation’s market is much larger than Xbox.
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