PlayStation Portal Controllers Have Started to Resell

News

By RC Staff

20 November 2023

Last week, a new accessory for the PlayStation 5 was released. The PlayStation Portal allows you to play games from anywhere in your home by connecting to a PS5 console. Preorders for them were open for several months, but gamers widely derided the technology and it expected it to fail. Come launch day, all of the preorders had sold out, and now resellers are flipping the controllers for well over retail and making easy money off of FOMO.

What is the PlayStation Portal?

We all remember the PlayStation Portable right? The PSP came out at a time to compete with Nintendo’s total domination of the handheld market, and was quite succesful.

Sony would shelve the PSP in 2014, and the idea of a powerful handheld console has been on ice since then. Now we’re getting a revival of the idea, but it doesn’t work quite the same way.

The PlayStation Portal is essentially a PS5 controller with an embedded screen. There’s no onboard graphics processing, and the controller is meant to be used in concert with a PlayStation 5. You connect the Portal to your console, the console runs the game, and you use the Portal to make inputs and see the action.

It’s intended for use over home Wi-Fi, where both the Portal and the PS5 are on the same network. It can also be used when outside of your home, although the quality of your connection will have a strong influence on the quality of play. Sony recommends a minimum connection speed of 5mbps to play, and 15mbps for the best experience.

The PlayStation Portal was first announced back in May, and the reception was pretty hostile. In a world with Nintendo Switches, Steam Decks, and Nvidia offering high-powered processing anywhere with GeForce Now, the PlayStation Portal seemed like a latecomer and unnecessary.

Preorders opened in August through the PlayStation store and late September for online retailers, but controllers were not expected to ship until November. The PlayStation Portal cost $200.

It was very easy to make a preorder for this product. There were enough mocking videos and derogatory social media posts about after its announcement that it seemed doomed to flop upon release. Preorders were open until at least October depending on retailer.

Now fast forward to November. The PlayStation Portal is about to release. Reviewers have started to get their hands on them. People are talking about them. And suddenly the preorders have sold out.

It’s not even like the narrative shifted either. People were still ragging on these controllers up until release, but the fact they were sold flipped a switch in people’s brains. Now that they could no longer buy them, they suddenly really, really, really needed to buy them.

Guess what happened next.

PlayStation Portal Controllers Resell

Is there any better combination than people with too much money and FOMO? If you’re a reseller, we can’t think of any.

After preorders for the PlayStation Portal sold out, a new market for them emerged. Starting in early November and continuing up to and after release, these controllers started flipping.

Right now, a PlayStation Portal is reselling for around $300 on average. These retailed for $200 and were limited to one per customer, so each sale is a quick $100 in profit.

Considering just how long these controllers were available to order, it would have been incredibly easy to make multiple accounts and make multiple preorders. Furthermore, because these were a preorder, there was no risk. You could simply cancel the order ahead of release if they failed to sell out.

All you needed was someone tipping you off about the product. This sale was a no-brainer, especially when you consider the order could be canceled for a full refund before it shipped.

And you know who was told to buy these items? RC Elite members. We posted these back in September when they went live in September, and clearly instructed that they were an easy buy and zero risk. Members who were paying attention set themselves up to make easy profits come November.

If you want to cash in on opportunities like this in the future, maybe you should join RC Elite too. From vinyl records, collectible knives, toys, video games, watches; literally anything you can think of to flip, RC Elite has your back.