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28 March 2024

Game on in Dubai: Virgin, Geekay open pre-orders for Sony PS4; Xbox One to follow?

Published
By Vicky Kapur

Gamers and Sony PlayStation fans in the UAE (and rest of the GCC) have reason to rejoice. This week, two major retailers have officially opened up pre-orders for the forthcoming next-gen PS4 gaming console.

Now if you’re a hardcore gamer, you’ll already know that the Sony PlayStation 4 and the Microsoft Xbox One did, together, bust Amazon’s game counter with pre-orders clocking up to 2,500 consoles a minute are their peak during the Electronic Entertainment Expo, popularly known as the E3, earlier this month.

Microsoft and Sony officially launched pre-orders for their respective upcoming consoles during E3 2013. At that time, Amazon claimed that the online retailer sold out most of its Xbox One Day one inventory in its first four hours of availability, right after Microsoft did a 180 over its always-on Internet connectivity and its decision to impose restrictions on pre-owned titles on the new Xbox One gaming console. (Read: Xbox One vs. PlayStation 4: Microsoft takes a U-turn, bites back at Sony).

Amazon made it clear in a press statement last week that its Video Games division had a big week during E3, thanks to Xbox One and PS4 pre-orders. According to Amazon, it had the biggest pre-order week ever for its Video Games store, adding: “Day-one pre-orders for the two consoles was nearly two times that of all video games sales on Black Friday last year [2012].”

It highlighted in the statement that, for the week of E3 2013 (June 11-13), the number of orders on Amazon’s Video Games website increased by over 4,000 per cent compared to E3 2012. “In fact, at the peak of demand last week, Amazon customers were pre-ordering more than 2,500 Xbox One and PlayStation 4 consoles per minute.”

Huge.

In a bid to cash in on that gamer frenzy, at least two major UAE retailers – Virgin Megastore and Geekay Games – have opened up pre-orders for Sony’s PS4 console. Both are offering the console for Dh1,699 apiece although Virgin is sweetening the deals with a Dh100 SWITCH credit with every pre-order.

Here’s where you can access Virgin Megastore’s Sony PS4 pre-order page and this is where to find Geekay Games’ Sony PS4 pre-order link.

For Virgin Megastore, you’ll have to visit one of their physical stores, put down a deposit of Dh499, and the ay the remainder Dh1,200 once the console is in stock (you’ll need to retain the receipt until then). Geekay Games allows you online payment (there’s an additional Dh23 shipping cost), but you’ll need to cough up the entire amount plus shipping upfront.

That’s for the Sony PS4, but we are hard-pressed to find who, if anyone, is taking pre-orders for the Xbox One in the UAE. Considering that the Microsoft Xbox One is set for an earlier global launch (November 2013) than the Sony PS4 (December 31, 2013), it would have been logical for Xbox One pre-orders to hit UAE’s shores earlier.

But we’re guessing that Microsoft will need to make some last-minute changes to the tech-fabric of its consoles owing to that massive U-turn on always-on Internet connectivity and game sharing limitations in addition to no regional restrictions, and that might be holding it back from committing to inventory to local retailers yet.

Whatever the case may be, we’re guessing it won’t be long before one of the retailers announces pre-orders for the Xbox One. We’ll let you know when we know.