UK politicians call for scalping laws following PS5 and Xbox Series X launches

This legislation would make it illegal to resell goods bought with bots.

A group of UK politicians have said that there should be legislation to stop people scalping highly-sought-after items like the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X consoles.

That's according to VGC, which reports that that six Scottish National Party members of Parliament (MPs) have tabled an Early Day Motion yesterday (Monday, December 14th) asking that laws be drawn up to stop the "resale of gaming consoles and computer components at prices greatly above Manufacturer's Recommended Retail Price." This will also make it illegal to resell goods bought using bots.

So far, 10 MPS have signed the bill, mostly from Scotland. There's no indication yet if this will be called for a debate in the UK's House of Commons.

This follows the launch of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S consoles in November. One scalping group – CrepChiefNotify – boasted it had snagged around 3,500 of Sony's new machine. On launch, the group landed 2,472 consoles, in addition to "just under 1,000" PS5 pre-orders that it had scored in September.

The group also tried to buy 1,000 Xbox Series X from retailer Very but these orders were cancelled by the company.

These machines are going for an awful lot of money on secondary marketplaces. PlayStation 5s have attracted as much as £990 on services like Ebay, while Xbox Series X have been going for north of £700. UK second-hand retailer CEX is charging £815 for PS5s, too, offering users £650 to sell the £450 machine.