Early Tuesday morning, Microsoft began pre ordering new Xbox series X theme mini refrigerators. According to some social media reports, these refrigerators sold out in 30 seconds.
As announced late last week, through Microsoft’s retail partner target and game, the pre order of this mini refrigerator will take effect at 6 a.m. Pacific Standard Time on Tuesday. At 6:01 a.m., a few customers who went to check out found that the advance order had been sold out.
However, this is not so much a proof of the popularity of the Xbox brand as a proof of the current frenzy in the secondary market of collectibles. Although Microsoft has not publicly stated how many advance orders are available to the public, a considerable number of advance orders have been robbed by automatic resellers. One of them boasted on twitter that he had obtained more than 160 advance orders using e-commerce robots.
At the time of writing, more than 150 Xbox mini refrigerators have been listed on eBay in the United States, offering a price of $150 to $1000 to any buyer who wants to accept a pre order. If an American customer can buy his own, he only needs to pay $99.99 before tax. The British version of eBay is also full of refrigerator pre orders at a similar price.
This does not necessarily mean that future Xbox refrigerator owners will be unlucky. Microsoft has promised to continue to “expand regional availability” in 2022. The official Xbox twitter said this morning that there will be another wave of pre purchase in December.
However, this may also be the case without positive anti BOT measures. For anything that can be collected remotely, including the upcoming Xbox 20th anniversary controller and the X series itself, this is an annoying situation.
If you want to buy a new game console or video card this year, you know the pain; Resellers use robots to bypass the supplier’s one-to-one customer rules and then sell the equipment on the auction website at 200% of the MSRP price. It’s not impossible to break through robots and get such products for yourself, but it’s usually because of bad luck.
Although Microsoft may be happy about this because it only sells through its strange random products, customers are not so happy. As a result, the mini refrigerator page on target has been bombarded by censorship, and 77% of the more than 500 websites have been rated as a star.
The Xbox refrigerator is produced by ukonic, a commodity company based in Las Vegas. It was given to Snoopy dog as a joke last October. Later, it became a reality as a reward to voters after Xbox won the “brand level” challenge on twitter in April.
The official mini refrigerator looks like the Xbox X series, with an analog cooling vent on the top and a light-emitting LED that mimics the power button of the X series. It has a USB port on the front, so you can use the refrigerator to charge compatible devices, such as the Xbox elite controller.
The refrigerator is 18 inches x 9 inches x 9 inches (462mm x 232mm x 232mm) and has a 13.8 inches x 6.8 inches x 6.8 inches (352.3mm x 174mm x 175mm) compartment inside. Interesting fact: if you remove the two internal shelves of the refrigerator, this shelf is large enough to install a real X Series console in the X series refrigerator.