It was an insanely long time before you could walk into a store and buy a PS5. You'd have to catch specific retailers right when they dropped a couple units online.

Eventually Sony let you sign up for a waiting list, and if you had a real history on their platform you'd get a shot in a reasonable amount of time to order within like a 12 hour window they gave you.

Xbox wasn't completely immune to that. But for a long time, if your goal was just "get a next gen console to play Madden or FIFA" (whatever multiplatform game had a mechanically better next gen version that people who mostly play one game would want), it was a lot easier to do that with Xbox.

It's pretty clear that that's mostly because PS was way more popular, but the audience I'm talking about might consider switching if it means they can play that one game now.

Since scalpers would buy out all the stores and stuff, many people such as myself initially turned to discord channels for tracking new shipments to different retailers. I would check it a few times a day, checking Best Buy branches' online inventories. Eventually Sony made a system where you could register with your PlayStation account for a slot ordering from the next available shipment.