Nobody likes scalpers They buy popular products in large quantities and resell them for a hefty profit, making it difficult for the average consumer to get their hands on the hottest products At least for now, Sony is developing creative ways to combat scalpers, but only in Japan

As Automaton pointed out, those who want to secure a PS5 Pro in Japan will have to prove they are indeed gamers by filling out a pre-order form In addition to questions that can be answered with a quick Google search, prospective buyers must also have logged into their PlayStation account for 30 hours on a PS4 or PS5 between February 22, 2014 and September 19, 2024 If this requirement is not met, the PS5 Pro cannot be reserved

This is not a hard number to meet; 30 hours of video game play in 10 years should be easy for anyone planning to spend $700 on a high-end gaming console

This is not a perfect system to discourage duffers Many of the people who duff out their consoles may be PlayStation game players looking to make a little extra cash If so, they could easily log in to their PlayStation account for 30 hours Still, it might prevent a few duffers from getting consoles to resell

Of course, the PS5 Pro is still available for pre-order and is not particularly difficult to obtain So if duffers purchase a large number of recently released consoles, they will take a significant financial hit (poor babies) However, it would have been great for Sony to implement this system for its 30th anniversary collection