Good news has been buzzing among Japanese netizens recently! With the new year kicking off, electronics retailers like Yodobashi Camera have started stocking up on PS5s, with some users even spotting over 200 units at a single store.
However, it's still up in the air whether this new wave of consoles will truly ease Japan's ongoing PS5 shortage. What's even more perplexing for gamers, though, is the sheer number of loose PS5 controllers popping up at secondhand shops.
Secondhand retailer WORLD MOBILE recently took to Twitter to announce that their Akihabara branch is loaded with genuine, official PS5 DualSense controllers, each going for a sweet 4,400 yen. That's a significant markdown from the official retail price of 6,980 yen!
The sight of these controllers, piled high without their boxes, is quite striking. One netizen jokingly suggested they looked like they were "just unloaded after being fished out of the sea." But the real head-scratcher for most users remains: "How did they get so many?"
Some, seeing the low price, speculated that these were simply broken controllers offloaded by players. This also reignited rumors about the PS5 DualSense being prone to breaking. However, WORLD MOBILE clarified in a Twitter reply that customers can test the controllers on-site before buying, implying that many are still in working condition.
The mystery deepened for others: with PS5 consoles still notoriously scarce, why are so many controllers being sold loose and in bulk? It just feels... suspicious. One netizen even floated the theory that Chinese users might be using the PS5 consoles for crypto mining, leaving behind a surplus of unused controllers. (Though, let's be real, the PS5 mining rumor has long been debunked as unrealistic.)
Despite the back-and-forth, netizens haven't landed on a universally accepted explanation. Still, if you can't snag a PS5 console, grabbing a DualSense to connect to your PC isn't a bad consolation prize, right? *sigh*