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Comment by pxeboot | Hacker News Reader

Before iPhone's were as widely available as today, there were similar problems with scalpers buying them all. Apple even banned buying them with cash [1] so they could limit purchases per customer.

[1] https://www.wired.com/2007/10/the-iphone-cash/

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So, you're reinforcing their point that the producers can take actions to attempt to address the problem. Actions which Sony has not undertaken in this instance.

In Sony’s defense, they have much less of a direct-to-customer channel than Apple does. They’re at the mercy of their retail partners (which they don’t directly control) to fix this problem.

Sony already has an online store.

They have their own store where they could implement a queue.

I would have been happy to place an order and then wait a year. Instead I did the follow a guy on twitter to find out when consoles are available and then use Firefox containers to make a bunch of simultaneous orders. It worked, but I’d rather just pay some money and sit in a queue.

They do this already. Like others mentioned, they have retail partners that they have to play nice with.

Having retail partners did not prevent Apple from protecting consumers from scalpers while manufacturing ramps up enough to meet demand.

Apple has way, way more clout with retailers than Sony, simply because Apple can live without its retail partners. Sony definitely cannot.

No, Apple cared that it's customers were having to compete with scalpers while manufacturing ramped up enough to meet demand and Sony does not.

Great. They have enough power to say, “hey, if you want to sell our product moving forward, we are going to ask you implement a preorder system by XX date. If you don’t we will, unfortunately, have to prioritize our limited supply to other retailers do to the ongoing high volume of scalping.”

They probably don’t have enough power to do this. Inter-corporation politics get pretty nasty.

That's exactly what they do. lol

https://www.playstation.com/en-us/ps5/register-to-buy/

where the buy button should be, they instead invite you to sign up for email notifications for when it's in stock

When I bought my PS5 last year they didn’t have that. I’m glad to see that in place now.

as others are mentioning, Sony has an online store where you can buy TVs, cameras, Walkmans, and phones. they could add game consoles

https://electronics.sony.com/

OP says "they have a store", they're saying with that store they could implement a queue where i can buy now knowing it may be some months before i see it in the mail. as it is they have a mailing list you sign up to be notified when consoles are in stock

https://www.playstation.com/en-us/ps5/register-to-buy/

Most iPhones are sold through carriers.

Importantly, the carriers need the iPhone more than Apple needs the carriers.

AT&T losing their iPhone privileges would hurt them far more than Target or Walmart would from losing their PlayStation privileges.

Exactly.

Before implementing a system where you can place your order before the device goes on sale, the issue Apple had was that they didn't have enough manufacturing throughput to launch products in all nations simultaneously.

>People wait in line at an Apple store to buy the newest iPhone for $600, paying a premium to skip the AT&T contract. They then sell the phones to middlemen, usually at electronics stores in Chinatown, for about $750.

The phones are shipped off to China, where the iPhone 4 is not yet on sale, and are distributed to local shops and e-commerce sites, where they sell for as much as $1,000.

https://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/23/technology/23iphone.html

You can fix the problem of customers being ripped off by scalpers while manufacturing ramps up, but companies choose not to do so.

So fourteen years ago when Apple was still new at manufacturing phones and they were exclusive to one carrier in one country there was a problem.

Sony has been selling PlayStations for 23 years and still can’t figure out how to meet demand?

Sony is only expected to produce 18 million units this year. Reports are that Apple is going to “limit” iPhone production to around 220 million (https://www.bangkokpost.com/tech/2316406/apple-to-keep-iphon...).

Why can’t Sony produce as many PS5’s in a year as Apple produces iPhones in a month?

There's probably a reason that Apple has moved to designing it's own chips. With that Apple doesn't buy chips so much as buy time at the fab. Not sure that's the same reason but I'd guess it plays in there.

They didn’t start designing their own chips until the iPhone 5. By 2010 and the iPhone 4, they were selling almost 40 million a year.

https://www.businessofapps.com/data/apple-statistics/

Apple is world class at a few different things and supply chain logistics is probably the thing they are best at. There is a reason the COO of Apple became CEO. What Apple has acomplished in operations is pretty astonishing.

With that said, that does not excuse Sony. They have had time to figure some basic solutions out. When I bought my 5900X I had to wait almost 6 months but I eventually got it because I was able to order it at launch even though it was already sold out.

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