If you’re still trying to score a PlayStation 5, Newegg is starting to sell them through a raffle system.
The system—dubbed Newegg Shuffle Events—is currently in beta, so it may not be a smooth experience. Nevertheless, it represents the company’s attempt to help consumers land in-demand items that scalpers and bots continue to buy up.
The retailer kicked off the first Shuffle event yesterday by letting consumers enter raffles to buy the RTX 3080 graphics card and AMD Ryzen 5000 CPUs. But on Thursday, Newegg added a new item to the raffle: the PS5 digital edition.
The caveat is that you’ll have to buy it as a $559 bundle, which includes a second controller, in addition to a PS5 webcam and remote. If you’re interested, you’ll have a three-hour window to select the product you want to buy. Then 30 minutes later, Newegg will select the winners and let them add the product to their carts, and complete checkout the process.
However, winners will only have a four-hour window to buy the product or their reservation will be forfeited. So make sure you keep tabs on your email inbox to receive Newegg’s notification on whether you won a raffle.
Not everyone was initially happy with the raffle system, since it required consumers to settle for combo deals. However on Thursday, Newegg began adding single items to the Shuffle Event, including AMD’s Ryzen 5600X and 5800X CPUs and Nvidia’s RTX 3080 and 3090 GPUs.
How frequently Newegg will hold the Shuffle events is unclear. But the company told PCMag: “We are aggressively looking to fine-tune this and get it ready for primetime.”
The other way you can score a PS5 is by trying out a free inventory checker. They’re designed to alert you via a mobile app or browser the moment major retailers have new stock available for online order.
