Japan Turns to a Purchase Lottery as PS5 Pro Stock Dries Up Before GTA 6
Written by the GTA6 Resources team
A console you can barely find is about to run one of the most anticipated games ever made -- and in Japan, Sony is now rationing who's even allowed to buy one.
Kotaku reports that PS5 Pro shortages have hit Japan hard enough that Sony has restricted purchases to active PlayStation users, rolling out a lottery system to decide who gets a shot at buying the console. According to the report, the move is meant to counter ongoing supply shortages while also cutting down on scalpers looking to flip units for profit.
Details are still thin on exactly how the lottery is structured or how long the restrictions will remain in place, but the timing lines up with mounting anticipation for GTA 6, which the original report explicitly frames as a factor driving demand.
For fans following the GTA 6 rollout, this is another data point in a pattern that's been building for months: hardware and accessories tied loosely to the game keep outstripping supply. We've already covered how PlayStation's own store buckled under demand for GTA 6-themed DualSense controllers, with preorders selling out fast enough to spark scalper activity almost immediately. A console-level shortage in a major market like Japan suggests that pressure isn't limited to peripherals -- it's showing up at the hardware tier too.
It's worth noting that Sony hasn't (per this report) tied the restrictions explicitly to GTA 6 -- the lottery appears to be a general anti-scalping measure amid a shortage. But given the game's release is widely seen as the single biggest console-selling event on the horizon, it's reasonable for players to read this as part of the broader crunch: everyone from retailers to platform holders bracing for a surge in demand tied to the game's launch window.
Practically, this means Japanese players hoping to upgrade to a PS5 Pro before GTA 6 arrives may need to actively participate in PlayStation's ecosystem and enter Sony's lottery rather than simply walking into a store. It's a small but telling sign of how much strain the industry expects GTA 6 to put on hardware supply chains worldwide, not just software preorders and merch drops.
