Sports fans and concert-goers are familiar with scalpers, people who will purchase as many limited quantity items as they can right when they're released, such as tickets, and sell them at much higher prices to the unfortunate souls who show up after the item is sold out. It seems that a number of them have decided to target the Analogue Pocket.
The Analogue Pocket is a hand-held game console and MIDI synthesizer developed by Analogue. The company opened its virtual doors to pre-orders today at 8 AM PST, and the portable retro console sold out in just 16 minutes. Customers were limited to 2 per order, but scalpers can easily get around such limitations by enlisting friends or family to buy on their behalf.
Right now, the devices on eBay are listed in the $600-$1000 range, that's 300-500% markup from the original price of just $200. Analogue is urging customers to be patient while it ramps up production to meet increased demand.
Scalpers will scalp because there are people out there willing to meet the steep prices for instant gratification. In a perfect world, gamers could be patient and sign up for the email waiting list rather than perpetuating this bad behavior. If a scalper is able to get their hands on a mountain of Baby Yoda toys then sell them online for 500% markup each, it's difficult to convince them they should stop. However, if they bought a mountain of baby yoda toys and buyers weren't interested in them, they'd end up feeling like they'd bought a mountain of useless plastic and (hopefully) not try that venture again.
Besides ignoring them, which would only work if every potential Analogue Pocket buyer in the world agreed to do so, few things can be done to stop them. Back in 2017 when the SNES Classic was being targeted by scalpers, eBay responded by pledging to "remove listings for pre-release items and accessories if the release date of the item is more than 30 days away." That is all well and good, but it does not apply to the Analogue Pocket because the release date is today. According to its Policies page, eBay is encouraging buyers to report scalpers by reporting the listings for Price Gouging.
Last May a Twitter user calling themselves Solomon Gumball came up with an ingenious scheme to trick Nintendo Switch scalpers by sending them all to the same Arby's. While such a scheme does feel good, it is not nearly enough to end the trend of scalping game consoles entirely.
This is a problem that is not going away soon, not unless everyone can resist temptation. Whether it's game consoles, tickets, or Kanro's tropical-flavored Pikachu gummies, as long as there is something with high demand and limited supply, bad actors will try to make a buck The best thing potential buyers can do right now is report the listings for price gouging and wait patiently for more stock to be released.
Source: GameSpot