This story is part of Holiday Gift Guide 2020, CNET’s gift picks with expert advice, reviews and recommendations for the latest tech gifts for you and your family.
Want to know how to crash Walmart’s site? Easy: Just tell everyone that you have the new PlayStation 5 in stock. That’s what Walmart did on launch day (Nov. 12), and inventory sold out at lightning speed, leaving most Walmart shoppers frantically clicking on a site that buckled under the traffic. As promised, Walmart split up its inventory and released consoles at four times during the day — 9 a.m., noon, 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. PT. That did little to keep the site from crashing for many customers, however, and inventory evaporated more or less instantly anyway. That said, we have to give props to Walmart: It communicated the availability windows clearly on its Twitter feed and its product pages, and it didn’t try to upsell shoppers on pricey bundles.
Right now, Walmart, like all retailers, is currently sold out of both the $400 digital-only PS5 and the $500 model with Blu-ray. (For such a time as it’s relevant, we continue to advise that if you don’t need the optical drive for games or movies, you should probably go with the $400 one.)
Walmart (and other retailers) won’t be sold out forever, of course, and we’re waiting to let you know when all the stores have restocked. Inventory will be limited everywhere for the rest of 2020, so if you are intent on scoring a PS5, you’ll need to be vigilant. We’ll continue to update this article as the availability story evolves — such as if Walmart tweets again.
To make it a little easier to quickly get to the product page, here are both versions of the PS5:
Sony
This is the less pricey Digital Edition, which has an 825GB SSD but lacks the optical drive. If you have a good broadband connection, your money is best spent right here.
Dan Ackerman/CNET
The cream of the PlayStation crop, this console includes an 825GB SSD and Blu-ray optical drive.
Full PS5 coverage
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