GameStop Drops The Ball: PlayStation Portal MIA

In this episode, we talk about the absolute debacle that is the current status of PlayStation Portal pre-order stock missing from GameStop stores.

I have to admit, I've probably gone easier on GameStop than a lot of other people on YouTube have. There's a reason for that, until the last year my local GameStop store was actually pretty good. I've told the story in the past of how my local store actually called me the day before PlayStation 5 pre-orders opened up to make sure I was in the store the next day so that I got a system. The former store manager Mitch was amazing to deal with. His staff knew what was going on. Well, in the last year, things have gotten progressively worse to the point of absolute incompetence.

I've told the story on the channel about how I have a PlayStation Portal pre-ordered, and it was something that I did per the request of fans of the channel. It wasn't something I was super interested in myself, but people wanted to hear my take on it. At $200 I was willing to do that as I figured the content would pay for itself. I've had very good luck with the store and Bloomington, Illinois as of late, however, when I called them all of their pre-order slots were filled. I called the store in Champaign, Illinois and they actually still had one available for pre-order.

Let me rephrase that, I tried calling the store in Champaign but the new employee did not feel like he needed to answer the phone. I know this because I saw him making snide remarks several times the day I went to place my pre-order, frustrated that people would dare have the audacity to call. When I placed my pre-order, I asked him if he could look up my GameStop account, and he thought I meant my Pro Membership. I wanted him to look up my GameStop credit card number as I've had them do many times in the past when I have forgotten to bring it with me. He informed me that he couldn't do it, that wasn't something they could do at a store level, and that if I needed one he could give me the number to customer service to request a replacement card. Great customer service this was not.

I begrudgingly placed my pre-order and waited for the release date. Upon that date, November 15, 2023, I headed to the store in the early evening after work. I had no idea whether or not a system would actually be there for me or not as I had not gotten a call to remind me that pre-orders would be available for pickup the next day. Typically, this store called when pre-order items were going to be available to remind people. I didn't get that call. When I stopped in the store, yet another brand new employee was there, alone, and said he did not have any PlayStation Portals, they hadn't arrived, and while he had a shipment in the back that he could go through he didn't plan on doing it. They had no idea when the systems would arrive.

As I left the store, I actually gave the store in Bloomington a call to see if they had gotten their pre-orders. I talked to a rather pleasant woman who took the time to talk to me, and informed me that they did not get their pre-order either, and to the best of her knowledge, none of the GameStop stores have received them. She indicated something similar happened with the Sony DualSense edge controllers. As I said, she was wonderful to talk to, had her stuff together, and helped to answer my questions.

The next day I called both corporate and the store again. Corporate was completely clueless and referred me to the regional sales manager, or at least said they would escalate my request to the local regional sales manager. They could not get me that person's contact information to follow up. When I called the store again in the morning, they indicated that the systems had still not arrived, they had no ETA but that they should be there by Black Friday.

The whole idea of a pre-order is to make sure that you get an item on the day that it launches. Sometimes you get extra stuff in the box with it, but by and large, you pre-order to ensure you have one on launch day. GameStop is completely screwing the pooch on this one, and I'm amazed that they've dropped the ball so badly. This is the last thing I will be preordering from them in a long time, and if I go in there and they ask me why I want to pre-order something I will make sure to point out this issue.

Have you run into the situation? Have you gotten a pre-ordered PlayStation portal from GameStop? Share your experiences in the comments.

#GameStop #PlayStation #Portal #Rant #shortsexcellence