[imagesource: Complex Original]

When Microsoft rolled out its Xbox Series X|S and Sony debuted the PlayStation 5 in November, gamers were waiting, card in hand to snap them up.

I’m not going to go into which one is better. That’s a war that I’m staying well clear of.

(Okay, it’s the PS5 – fight me.)

Whichever camp you’re in, if you weren’t fast enough to click ‘add to cart’, you were out of luck – the consoles sold out in a matter of minutes.

In America, gamers were given one more shot at buying the console when Walmart restocked the night before Thanksgiving, ahead of Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Once again, inventory sold out in minutes, leaving customers confused. No one is that quick on the trigger.

CBS News puts it down to one thing: bots.

These are software programs coded to purchase in-demand products as soon as they go on sale, at a speed that is physically impossible for a human to compete with.

“What they do is basically look at any high-demand item, and they look at how you purchase them and then develop a bot to do that,” Cequence Security “hacker-in-residence” Jason Kent told CBS Moneywatch.

“Then they go to their ‘market’ and say, ‘I have a bot that will go buy PS5s — it’s $300 if you want to buy [the bot].'”

People will pay to use the bots to buy two items, like two PS5s, and then sell one at a mark-up to make back the money that they spent to gain a technological advantage.

“It’s like playing the lottery when the jackpot grows really high,” Patrick Sullivan, chief technology officer at Akami, said.

“You could win the lottery by purchasing one number, but you are at a disadvantage compared to a consortium of investors who pool their money and buy a huge number of tickets in an attempt to win a very large jackpot.”

To level the playing field, there are even bots designed to help people out. Cam Ritz, whose Twitch channel streamed video showing the bots pinging retailers, says that he designed a bot to compete with other bots, with one tracking restocks of PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X consoles.

Right now it’s not illegal for bots to purchase products, leaving it up to retailers to try and limit them.

“Many retailers are working very hard to allow their loyal customers to buy these limited inventory items as opposed to have bot operators hoover them all up and resell on third-party marketplaces,” Sullivan of Akamai added.

Around the globe, stores are working on getting more consoles ahead of the holidays.

Your best bet is to preorder.

[source:cbs]