Skip to main content

PS5 deliveries via Amazon lead to surprises for some U.K. customers

Imagine a delivery driver turning up at your door with that PlayStation 5 you ordered. Exciting stuff, right? Now imagine tearing open the box to find not the much-sought-after gaming console but instead a large bag of rice. Or a Nerf gun.

A number of customers in the U.K. claim to have experienced this bizarre outcome after the PS5 launched there on Friday, November 20, with all of the erroneous deliveries apparently the result of orders placed with Amazon.

Recommended Videos

Journalist and presenter Bex May was one of the first to hit Twitter to share her tale of wrongful delivery after she received an air fryer instead of a PS5 console …

Happy #PS5 day everyone. Tried to document our one’s unveiling, but Amazon have tricked us with an unsolicited air fryer instead (after giving delivery password). Anyone else had this problem today? pic.twitter.com/99IUSzSJUU

— Bex April May (@bexlectric) November 19, 2020

London-based Adam Sullivan fared no better, happening upon something that most definitely was not a PS5 …

So went to open my PlayStation 5 that I ordered from @AmazonUK and found this! Some one has replaced it with rice!I wish I was joking! Pls RT! pic.twitter.com/VcSNce4Zgo

— iamadamsullivan (@iamadamsullivan) November 19, 2020

Another claimed to find cat food instead of the $500 Sony gaming console that they ordered, while someone else said they received a Nerf gun.

It’s not clear what’s going on, suffice to say that either at the warehouse, or at some point after, there are some very weird shenanigans taking place.

A spokesman for Amazon U.K. told The Guardian: “We’re all about making our customers happy, and that hasn’t happened for a small proportion of these orders.”

He added: “We’re really sorry about that and are investigating exactly what’s happened. We’re reaching out to every customer who’s had a problem and made us aware so we can put it right. Anyone who has had an issue with any order can contact our customer services team for help.”

Sony’s PlayStation 5 has been selling out around the world as gaming fans clamber to get their hands on the popular machine. The latest version of the PlayStation console has been winning rave reviews, with this site, for example, awarding it four-and-a-half stars out of a possible five for its attractive design, speedy hardware, and excellent load times. It certainly performs better than a bag of rice.

Digital Trends has reached out to Amazon to try to find out more about what on earth is going on and we will update this article when we hear back.

Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
You can get NBA 2K23 and more with PS Plus this June
Donovan Mitchell in NBA 2K23.

The three games that make up PlayStation Plus Essential's June lineup have been revealed. There are any major console exclusives or no releases included; instead, there's NBA 2K23, a Jurassic Park tie-in title, and an indie game inspired by classic samurai films.

NBA 2K23 needs little introduction, as it's the latest entry in 2K's long-running, annualized basketball video game series. This latest entry stands out from the ones that came before by deepening the controls an AI further, as well as adding a Jordan Challenge mode that chronicles Michael Jordan's career. Beware of some pretty intrusive microtransactions, though. 
Also available this month is Jurassic World Evolution 2, a theme park management game that swaps out roller coasters and other festivities for dinosaur-related attractions. The management genre is a surprisingly great fit for the Jurassic Park IP, and this game even provides a bit of story context to fill in the gap between Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and Jurassic World Dominion.
Finally, there's Trek to Yomi, a very cinematic indie game. It's stylized like a classic black-and-white samurai action movie, which makes sense as it's telling a revenge story about a pupil trying to avenge their dying master. If you didn't play this game through Game Pass, it's now available on a Sony subscription service as well.
This certainly isn't the most exciting game lineup, but it still provides a wide variety of gaming experiences. NBA 2K23, Jurassic World Evolution 2, and Trek to Yomi will be available through PlayStation Plus from June 6 until July 3. Make sure you download May's PS Plus games before then too. 

Read more
The Lord of the Rings: Gollum was too broken to review on PS5
Gollum stares at the eye of Sauron in The Lord of the Rings: Gollum key art.

Update (5/26): We returned to the PlayStation 5 version of The Lord of the Rings: Gollum after Update version 1.003.000 was released, and have found the experience has improved notably. It does still feature plenty of bugs, which we experienced on the PC version, but it's far more stable on console now. Progression-preventing glitches have disappeared, and the updated PS5 version has yet to crash on us. If you're grabbing the game on console, make sure to download the patch before starting.

What's unclear is how many of the problems were actually fixed. During the review period, Nacon's PR team attributed Gollum's performance problems in part to a setting that animated the character's hair. The patch appears to remove that option from the game entirely. It's likely that the problems the toggle was causing still persist behind the scenes, so it's hard to say if the game was fully fixed, so much as a problem feature was cut.

Read more
The most exciting PlayStation Showcase trailers you shouldn’t miss
A planet floats in the sky in Marathon.

Sony returned to its long-form PlayStation Showcase format today with an hourlong reveal stream showing off what's next for the PlayStation 5. The stream was filled with plenty of exciting announcements, from a remake of Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater to a spectacular Marvel's Spider-Man 2 trailer. Those were just a few of the games shown off during the stream though, which was packed with trailers.

There was a lot to see and no one would blame you if you missed a few things during the hour. From astonishing indie games from celebrated studios to a mysterious new project from Bungie, these are the trailers you need to catch up on if you missed the show.
Marvel's Spider-Man 2
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 | Gameplay Reveal

Read more