Huh, how do you actually stop scalpers and basic supply and demand?
Well what I would do is ship them directly to stores with stipulations of how they are supposed to be sold.
Limit one console purchase per-household, buyers must show ID's with valid address. Retail chains have ways to flag duplicate addresses as they use this system to prevent credit card fraud so it isn't a big ask. (most of these chain stores have their own credit cards these days).
This way people can't have their whole damn family line up to buy a ton of consoles at once. Though yes, in theory they could spread out to buy from different stores it would limit the number they could actually get a hold of at once, and since it's spread out over multiple stores you don't rob as many people of their ability to get a console too.
If sony can force retailers to only sell online, then they can force them to only sell in store with restrictions as well.
To prevent lines and crowds in Covid, you can have customers each purchase a Ticket a day or two before launch (as long as supplies last) with a time on it. Return at your appointment time with your ticket, pick up your console. this would also hurt scalpers because the tickets would be spread out to different people and make it harder to just spam buy.
Scalpers exist because it is too easy for them to run bots or otherwise get a shitload of a product very quickly and easily. They are nothing but predators of opportunity. If you make it annoying, and a hassle to scalp, then you drastically reduce the number of scalpers because it wont be worth the time.
There were other more fair ways to handle this launch.
