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Pre-orders for the Xbox mini-fridge went live earlier today, and thanks in part to scalpers, sold out a few minutes later.
Gamers have been tied up in picking their platform of choice and arguing why it is better than the opposition for decades. However, this latest generation of consoles has given all of us a common enemy. Whether you love Xbox, PlayStation, or Nintendo the most, we can all agree that scalpers are the absolute worst.
Scalpers are one of the leading reasons why PS5s and Xbox Series X consoles are still hard to come by almost a year after they arrived. To make matters worse, video game scalpers aren't focused on consoles alone. Xbox's mini-fridges went up for pre-order today. A few minutes after they became available, the novelty item had sold out in both Target and Game.
While the fridge, which looks just like a Series X, was obviously popular, scalpers are largely to blame for it selling out so fast. That was confirmed shortly after shoppers visiting Game and Target's sites discovered listings for the fridge on resale sites. Reports that potential customers were unable to add a mini-fridge to their online baskets started to filter through on social media about ten minutes after pre-orders went live.
The good news is there will be more fridges in the future. Xbox's social marketing manager has already taken to Twitter in an attempt to calm angry shoppers, letting them know more stock will be released when the fridge is officially available. That will presumably include physical stock in-store which may well be the best way to land yourself one without being beaten to the punch by a scalper.
The Xbox fridge started its two-year journey to becoming a product anyone, at least in theory, can get their hands on when the Series X's design was first revealed. People remarked the console looked like a fridge which prompted Xbox to make two full-size Series X fridges, giving one to Snoop Dogg. It then turned the Series X into a mini-fridge for a promotion with The Rock and eventually made a u-turn on its decision not to make more and sell them to the public.