At 11 A.M. ET today pre-orders for the Xbox Series X went live. It appears that just like the PlayStation 5, that if you aren’t extremely lucky or a robot, you probably weren’t able to get your order in.
I gave it a try on Microsoft, Amazon, Walmart, Gamestop, Target and Best Buy right when the pre-orders went live.
Amazon and Microsoft appeared to be completely overwhelmed as pages would just simply not load or went down while trying to move through the process. I never got as far as adding to my cart on either one those two retailers.
For Walmart I was able to get as far as entering my credit card information and placing the order, however instead of locking in the purchase I was notified that the item was out of stock.
Gamestop put me on a waiting page that eventually crapped out and took me back to their home page.
Target looked like it was going to work at first, getting me as far as creating an account to complete the purchase. However, I think I just got hustled to create an account I didn’t actually want, because once it was time to move the purchase along it also froze out and I was unable to add the Xbox Series X to my cart.
Your one hope right now if you’re still looking might be Best Buy. It doesn’t look like it actually went live yet, but expect competition with bots and eager buyers to be fierce once it is.
[Update: Best Buy did open up around Noon and was still looking good for getting an order in as of 1:30ish P.M. ET. Jump on it if you still can]
It’s also possible that there may be some stock left once people give up trying and places like Amazon and Microsoft return to somewhat normal loads on their pages. So if you weren’t able to get at 11 A.M. try again in a bit and see what happens.
One of our contributors Tom Meyer was able to get a pre-order in for the Xbox Series X, so it’s clearly not impossible but it’s definitely tough going right now with everyone trying at once.
You may also have better luck with the Xbox Series S if you’re willing to go that route. It appears that the disc-less Series S may be in less demand so give that a try if you’re willing to downgrade a bit.
If you pop over on Twitter, you can see how experiences have run the gamut.
Best of luck today if you’re still going for it!
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