The PlayStation 30th Anniversary Collection looks great. A lot of people seem to think so. And when retro nostalgia collides with rabid console fandom, things tend to sell out quickly. Unfortunately, we still don’t know exactly when pre-orders for everything from the 30th Anniversary PS5 Pro to the PS1-style DualSense will go live. It’s sounding like it might be 10:00 a.m. ET (7:00 a.m. PT). Eitheway, here are some steps you can take to try and get the jump on scalpers.
The 30th Anniversary PS5 merch goes up for pre-order on September 26 at the PlayStation Direct store and includes the following:
- All-Digital PS5 Pro limited edition bundle
- All-Digital PS5 slim limited edition bundle
- PlayStation Portal handheld
- DualSense Edge
- DualSense
Prices still haven’t been confirmed, though the PS5 slim bundle will reportedly be $500, while the DualSense is $80. More importantly, we still don’t know the exact time on September 26 that the PlayStation Direct store will begin taking pre-orders. Until Sony confirms that, your best bet is to check the website at key times and follow the PlayStation Twitter account for alerts.
When do pre-orders go live for the 30th Anniversary Collection?
Even though Sony hasn’t officially confirmed the pre-order time yet, we can make some educated guesses. The earliest that pre-orders are likely to go live is at midnight, 12:00 a.m. ET (9:00 p.m. PT), on September 26. After that, the window for pre-orders had tended to be in the late morning. Pre-orders first went live at the PlayStation Direct store for the original PS5 later in the day at 1:00 p.m. ET (10:00 a.m. PT).
The Shortcut reports that a major retailer in the U.S. claimed its inventory from the 30th Anniversary Collection would go up for sale starting at 10:00 a.m. ET on October 10, “exactly two weeks after Sony.” One interpretation, then, is that Sony’s own inventory will go up for sale starting at 10:00 a.m. ET (7:00 a.m. PT) on September 26. Or it might have nothing to do with the time at all.
The official PlayStation UK account tweeted that pre-orders begin at 10:00 a.m. but didn’t specify which time zone. If that was local time, it would be 5:00 a.m ET (2:00 a.m. PT) in the U.S. Whatever the case, it’s a good bet that pre-orders go live on the hour mark though, so as long as you’re checking before each one, you’re not likely to be taken by surprise.
3 things to do to increase your chances of nabbing the pre-order you want
There are other measures you can take to increase your chances of snagging a PS1-style PS Portal or one of the super rare, 12,300 limited-edition PS5 Pro 30th Anniversary bundles that comes in an all-white box. Here are some steps you can take to be better prepared before pre-ordering:
- If you have a PSN account, make sure you’re already logged on in your web browser.
- Have an active credit or debit card on file that can handle the full pre-charge for the sale and doesn’t expire in the next two months.
- Hope your internet doesn’t crap out at the last second
Once pre-orders actually go live, it’s just a matter of clicking on the store listing, selecting the pre-order option, hoping it gets added to your cart, and then checking out. If the site crashes or there’s a queue, refreshing the page can sometimes reset your place in line or the whole process, so don’t F5 unless you’re out of options. From there, what happens next is up to the Sony gods.
Hopefully, everything goes smoothly and it’s not a repeat of the 2020 PS5 pre-order debacle which was so bad, Sony apologized to fans for it. Fortunately, the first round of 30th Anniversary Collection pre-orders are exclusively through the PlayStation Direct store, so no one has to worry about the chaos of navigating half a dozen online retailers’ decade-old websites. We’ll update this story when and if Sony shares more information about what to expect from the 30th Anniversary Collection pre-order process.