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Best Buy’s new $200/yr membership locks PS5, hot holiday items behind membership - Ars Technica

Best Buy’s new $200/yr membership locks PS5, hot holiday items behind membership - Ars Technica

Best Buy’s new $200/yr membership locks PS5, hot holiday items behind membership - Ars Technica
Oct 12, 2021 1 min, 24 secs

If you're still searching for a PS5 and are a Best Buy customer, your ship may have just come in—that is, if you're willing to spend an extra $200 a year for access.

The $200 annual service—which has benefits like round-the-clock tech support, up to two years of protection on Best Buy purchases (including AppleCare+ insurance, which can cost $200 on its own), and member discounted prices—is throwing in exclusive access to "the season's hardest-to-find products" as a bonus perk for the holidays, the company said in a statement.

The Best Buy retail site had the $500 disc drive model PS5s available for Totaltech members to buy Monday morning, with the consoles gated behind an "exclusive access event" paywall.

Although the PS5's listing page pointed directly to Totaltech membership exclusivity while the hardware was still available, its seemingly unrelated VIP buying privileges aren't listed anywhere on the program's membership benefits and FAQ pages.

Beta seemed to target a more generalized range of benefits over one focused on tech support and protection, and it notably did not offer special members-only events to buy limited-stock electronics.

The company's free My Best Buy membership, which sometimes includes exclusive discount sales, remains unaffected.

Given that the AppleCare+ extended warranty includes coverage for two accidental damage incidents every 12 months, discounts on repair services, and covers any Apple device bought through Best Buy, customer mileage may vary depending on their tech tastes.

But for anyone uninterested in support services who just wants to buy a PS5 or presumably any of the other hottest tech wares that are currently impossible to find, Best Buy's new program arguably makes it look little better than a corporate scalper.

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