Study Shows PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S Console Scalpers Made Over $28 Million on eBay

By M. Kang

Posted on December 16, 2020

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PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S scalpers have made things difficult for gamers to get their hands on these consoles. Not only have scalper bots purchased consoles faster than regular consumers can, the scalpers have also resold these consoles at exorbitant resale prices. Although many have spoken out against this practice, these scalpers have still come away with insane profits.

According to Video Games Chronicle, a report by data engineer Michael Driscoll shows that PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S consoles have been sold on eBay for a profit margin of over $28 million.

Based on Driscoll’s reporting, the Xbox Series S and Series X has sold for a median price of $469 and $865 each, resulting in a profit margin of over $1.48 million and $8.60 million respectively. The PlayStation 5 has sold for a median price $937 for PS5 Digital and $1021 for PS5 Disc, for a total profit margin of over $4.29 million and $14.74 million respectively.

Even for median pricing, the upcharge is ridiculous. The Xbox consoles sell for a little less than 200% MSRP and the PlayStation consoles 200% MSRP for Digital and 300% MSRP for Disc. Additionally, it appears that price has only been increasing since launch, with both reselling at a median price higher than they were at launch.

The report also details other items scalpers have been targeting, namely Zen 3 (AMD’s CPU architecture), Big Navi (AMD’s new graphics card), and RTX 30 Series (NVIDIA’s graphics card lineup). Including next generation consoles, scalpers have collectively made “$82 million in sales, $39 million in profits.”

This data was collected using a homemade script which scraped eBay’s sold listing for the products in question. The data goes back to September and up to the first couple days of December. Additionally, Driscoll takes into account factors like eBay store’s tax and median shipping costs when calculating the profits made.

For more, see Michael Driscoll’s full report here.