Exclusive: Thousands of Astro Bot PS5 controller pre-orders delayed or canceled by Best Buy
Sony's limited-edition Astro Bot DualSense controller is on sale at Walmart instead, if you Best Buy order was canceled
Update: While the Walmart Astro Bot controller remains in stock, more Best Buy customers report that their pre-orders were delayed or canceled.
🤖 Sony’s limited-edition Astro Bot controller is set to launch on September 6
🏷️ Best Buy has delayed or canceled many pre-orders, users tell The Shortcut
🌟 Walmart does remain in stock this weekend with on-time deliveries
🎮 There’s no guarantee the PS5 DualSense will be back in stock after launch
Thousands of gamers who managed to snag an Astro Bot controller pre-order from Best Buy are getting bad news about the special PS5 DualSense this week, according to exclusive data from The Shortcut. Their order has suddenly been canceled. This happened to me and hundreds of the Matt Swider X followers who snagged the limited-edition Dual through my restock alerts. It was all for naught.
There’s good news, though. Walmart has the Astro Bot PS5 controller on sale right now for the MSRP of $79.99 to make up for Best Buy’s failure to deliver on timely pre-orders. Here’s my delayed notice, which was actually a cancellation when I finally got a text update about it.
If you did order from Best Buy, you may have received an email notifying you of a delayed order. That’s how it started for me. That delayed order status then turned into a full-on Astro Bot controller order cancellation within 24 hours. Not willing to risk it, I then ordered the PS5 controller from Walmart.
Astro Bot PS5 controller is limited edition
Since the Astro Boy controller is one of the best PS5 controller colors and designs and is a limited edition, the news is particularly devastating for some gamers hoping to have the gamepad on its release date, September 6. Now, they’re not going to get it at all if Walmart’s inventory dries up in the next few hours. We’ve reached out to Best Buy for comment.
What this means for PS5 Pro
Sony hardware, even when it’s not a limited edition item, has been hard to get a hold of in recent months and years. We’ve reported on the recent PSVR 2 PC adapter being sold out at every retailer in the United States. Our popular PS5 restock and PlayStation Portal restock guides were useful to gamers for months after the products launched simply because Sony’s inventory couldn’t meet demand.
The same thing could happen with the PS5 Pro in a few weeks, as rumors continue to suggest that Sony’s mid-generation console is ready to launch soon and we’re even seeing design leaks for the new video game system. PS5 Pro pre-orders could begin as soon as next month. Given the release date timing suspected to be just ahead of Black Friday, PS5 Pro could sell out in 2024.
PlayStation has little competition
With little to no console competition, demand for Sony’s hardware, from the Astro Bot controller to the PS5 Pro, may only increase. There’s no new Xbox release date on the horizon (the planned Xbox Series X Slim console was shelved).
Meanwhile, the new Nintendo Switch 2 isn’t expected to be released until April 2025. There’s also a lot of demand for additional portable PlayStation hardware, including a proper Sony PSP 2 handheld, which is rumored to launch in 2025. In that case, an Xbox handheld could launch as a rival, although that requires Microsoft to muster the courage to compete against Sony’s dominant hardware, which appears to not be the current Xbox strategy against PS5 Pro.