PS4 sells out in Spain; Sony promises more stock

PS4 sells out in 24 hours across Spain as Sony announces more units

How does a €400 console sell out in less than a day in a country where domestic demand is still struggling? That is exactly what Sony has been selling since the first minute: the PS4 disappeared from Carrefour, Game, El Corte Inglés and Media Markt within hours, and the company confirmed that stores will have new stock starting tomorrow. The official narrative is one of overwhelming success. The problem is that this narrative relies on a single word, sold out, which has functioned for two decades as the industry’s best free marketing campaign.

The stock that always runs out in 24 hours

The mechanism has a manual. The prevailing suspicion is that little stock is sent to each store—barely two or three units per location—so it runs out in less than a day, allowing them to loudly announce there are no stocks left. It’s the same thing Apple has always done, the argument goes, and it’s no coincidence: manufactured scarcity creates queues, queues create news, and news creates demand.

There is a second reading that doesn’t rule out the first. With the hype generated around a launch, the company cannot afford for the product not to sell out in 24 hours. If analysts detect unsold units, they point out, the share price takes a severe hit. In other words, scarcity would not just be marketing: it would be an obligation imposed by the capital market.

How many people buy the PS4 on launch day?

The scene repeats itself in shopping centers. During launch week, in a mall in southern Madrid, more than 40 people were counted in line before opening, and most left with the console under their arm. The picture, described with dry humor, was of dozens of buyers with their newly paid-for device and no protection whatsoever. A textbook case: a mother and her son left a store with a console, games, controllers and various accessories for €600.

Here enters the uncomfortable angle of consumption. With child poverty on the table and public requests for school meal assistance, spending €400 on a launch console grates. The rebuttal comes quickly: everyone spends their money on whatever leisure they please, just as others spend it on beer or clothes, and most buyers are not children but adults with stable incomes who have been saving for months. A full breakdown of who pays for what makes for an infographic far more uncomfortable than the "sold out" headline.

€400 for a device born obsolete

On the technical side, skepticism is total. The console’s graphics card receives criticism from day one: it is compared to desktop GPUs that perform much better at the same price, and warnings are issued that the hardware starts with less power than it will need in five years. The response is that raw power never decided everything, that online services and multitasking weigh as much as teraflops, and that the Xbox One arrives more expensive, with fewer titles and worse performance.

The gaming aspect doesn’t help either. The launch catalog is described as weak, and titles crossing the €60 threshold do not invite caution. The alternative proposed by the colder heads is to wait: buying a used PS3 or Xbox 360 for around €150 gives access to a huge, mature, and much cheaper catalog.

Defective consoles and day-one updates

The launch wasn’t clean. Complaints were registered about non-working units forcing returns, with cases of users having to visit the store several times until they found a working console. The official defense maintains that defective consoles account for less than 1% of sales. Doubts also circulate about the debut experience itself: you buy a new system, and the first thing it does when plugged in is ask for a software update.

The finale has its own rhyme. It is expected that the PS4 will repeat the historic success of the PS2, and indeed, sales beat forecasts in the first weeks. Everything fits: the same controlled scarcity mechanism, the same queues, the same "sold out" tagline. If it works, why change it?