So many people tried to order the PS5 on its launch day, Nov. 12, that Walmart’s site buckled under the traffic. Aside from steep markups on the secondary market, we haven’t seen Sony’s shiny new game console on sale since — but all that has changed now that we know that Walmart will be releasing inventory of the PS5, Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S on Thursday, Nov. 19.
Like the retailer did in the run-up to launch day, Walmart is sharing news about console availability via tweet. On Wednesday, Walmart announced that the store will have more consoles available — online only — on Thursday, at noon PT (3 p.m. ET).
‼️ Next Gen update ‼️ We’ll have more #PS5 & #XboxSeriesX available ONLINE only on Thursday, Nov. 19 at 3 PM ET. 🎉
— Walmart (@Walmart) November 18, 2020
Our friends at GameSpot have managed to fill in a few additional details. According to GameSpot, all four versions will be available, namely the Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, PS5 and PS5 Digital Edition. As the tweet says, this will be online only, so don’t even bother trying to wait in line at a brick-and-mortar store. And the magic time is 12 p.m. PT (3 p.m. ET).
Let’s be real with each other for a moment: Your odds of snagging a console this week aren’t great. We saw what happened at the launch, when the site shuddered under the load of fans trying to buy a console and most people went home empty-handed. We don’t expect the situation to be dramatically better this time around, but at least a few of us should be able to snag a console. If you are one of the successful ones, please let us know in the comments.
To make it a little easier to quickly get to the product page at game time, as it were, we’ve linked to the Walmart product pages of all the consoles below. Looking for other retailers? Check for restocks at Amazon, GameStop and Target here.
Dan Ackerman/CNET
The cream of the PlayStation crop, this console includes an 825GB SSD and Blu-ray optical drive. Read our PS5 review.
Sony
This is the less pricey Digital Edition, which has the same specs as the more expensive one, including an 825GB solid-state drive, except that it lacks the optical drive. If you have a good broadband connection, your money is best spent right here. Read our PS5 review.
Andrew Hoyle/CNET
This is Microsoft’s top-of-the-line console equipped with four times the processing power of the Xbox One. It has a Blu-ray drive, 1TB of solid-state storage and can output in 4K resolution. Read our Xbox Series X review.
Andrew Hoyle/CNET
This is a step-down from the $499 Xbox Series X. It plays all the same games, but it’s capped at 1440p resolution, has half as much storage (500GB versus 1TB) and lacks the Series X’s Blu-ray player. Read our Xbox Series S review.
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