Bollywood Celebs Show Off PS5 Purchases from Games The Shop As Indian Gaming Community Fumes

May 31, 2021 f_admin PS5 News 0

Last week Bollywood actor Boman Irani took to Instagram to show off his PS5 purchase, tagging the account responsible for it — Games The Shop. During the PS5 India launch in February, actor Shruti Haasan had a similar post also on Instagram. While IGN India doesn’t usually cover what Bollywood celebs are up to, our readers reached out with details of both posts, wondering why the retailer hasn’t been able to bring the PS5 to those that aren’t as famous.

So Why Are Indian Gamers Angry?

While Bollywood seems to be able to buy the PS5 from Games The Shop, the retailer’s website itself was nearly inaccessible to many a prospective buyer during the PS5 launch and restocks. A cursory check on Instagram suggests that a host of influencers were able to get their consoles from Games The Shop too.

Amusingly, an employee responsible for facilitating these celebrity endorsements at the store told buyers that the aforementioned celebrities obtained their consoles from the site itself. IGN India has verified these claims made to customers to be accurate.

Nonetheless, it doesn’t seem to be the truth as the site went down minutes before pre-orders were supposed to go live.

It’s quite likely that these orders were placed offline or done as a favour for the celebrities to mention the store which would ensure favourable publicity.

Games The Shop has come under fire of late. During every sale, its site seems to have crashed with many an IGN reader being unable to buy the PS5, with some going as far as to allege that the retailer is selling stock offline at higher prices.

For what it’s worth, IGN India editors Shunal Doke and yours truly were able to purchase our PS5s from Games The Shop offline without any problems.

That isn’t to say others were unable to buy from Games The Shop’s website at all. Informal polls suggest a scant few were able to obtain them. Though it is disheartening when you consider the pedigree of the people behind the site.

What Is Games The Shop?

For the unbeknownst, Games The Shop is a Mumbai-based retailer. Think of it as India’s answer to GameStop, minus the stock market memes. It is a privately-held business whose parent company is E-xpress.

Incidentally, E-xpress is also India’s largest distributor of games, having a virtual monopoly of the market. Outside of Sony’s first-party PlayStation games, Microsoft’s first-party Xbox games, and Activision, the chances are that, if you bought a video game in India, E-xpress is responsible for bringing it into the country. The company’s co-founders are Amit and Anand Khemani.

IGN India reached out to Games The Shop for comment and will update this story if we hear from the company.

When Is the Next PS5 Restock Date?

Sources tell IGN India that the next PS5 India restock is days away with a date set for June. Some speculate we should see PS5 restock pre-orders go live between June 7 to 11, makes sense when you consider that Sony exclusive Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart is out on June 11.

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