Have PlayStation 5 fans been mistakenly blocked by Sony Singapore from ordering the console?

If you’ve been trying to pre-order the PlayStation 5 in Singapore but haven’t had any luck, well, you’re not the only one.

Retail partners are reporting that their pre-orders are full and we’ve even seen scalpers attempting to cash in on what is possibly the hottest new console launch in the last decade.

But if a few of you are attempting to order the console directly from Sony Singapore, well, you are in for a huge surprise as Singaporeans have had trouble pre-ordering it from Sony Singapore, less so than folks from outside the nation.

How is this so? If you tried accessing the site in the last few days at around 11am, you would have discovered that IP addresses from Singapore are somehow being blocked when attempting to pre-order a PS5.

This “preventive measure” prevents consumers from even standing a chance to get their hands on Sony’s new console on launch day.

If you were to attempt to make a pre-order using a Singapore IP address, you would typically end up seeing this on your screen. This can happen even if it’s your first time accessing the site at 11am:

It appears that no amount of refreshing would do the trick for some. If one did manage to successfully click through and go all the way through to keying in their address and payment method, however, they’d end up with this screen at the final step:

Frustrating? Yup, and we can testify to that.

However, there seems to be one way to get around this, and that is to use a VPN to trick Sony’s website into thinking that you’re buying from outside Singapore (huge irony, we know). Since it won’t ship overseas, you can send it to your local address.

We don’t think that it’s Sony’s fault though. It’s very likely that in an attempt to block multiple refreshes of the page from the same IP, but it somehow ended up blocking everyone running on the same ISP instead maybe.

If this is Sony’s way to curb bots from ordering directly, it’s a great move, but it has somehow led to not allowing a large number of legitimate customers in Singapore from making an order. GG.

Unless Sony corrects this, it’s as if you have to climb through the rubbish chute just to get into your own home – nasty but necessary. Not that it’s your fault, though.

In this case, we recommend using either ExpressVPN or NordVPN if you wish to try this method before the LAST and FINAL pre-order date on Sept 22!

In any case, for the more Lawful Good types, it won’t be too long before more stocks for the PlayStation 5 come to Singapore’s shores after it launches on Nov 19.

Fresh stocks are expected to arrive around mid-December, just in time for the holiday season.

Patience sometimes is a virtue, but then again, so is resourcefulness.

Just maybe don’t support the scalpers while you’re at it.

This article was first published in Geek Culture.