UK Members of Parliament call for ban on bulk buying consoles
A motion submitted on Monday asks to make the resale of products bought in large quantities using automated bots illegal
A group of Members of Parliament in the UK called for the establishment of strict rules around the reselling of consoles in the country.
As reported by VGC, six MPs from the Scottish National Party proposed an Early Day Motion on Monday asking for legislation to prohibit the "resale of gaming consoles and computer components at prices greatly above Manufacturer's Recommended Retail Price."
Early Day Motions are designed specifically to draw attention on an issue for legislation consideration. The launch of the PlayStation 5 recently was particularly impacted by scalper groups buying large quantities of consoles to resell at a higher price. A common practice is for these groups to use bots to avoid queue systems implemented by retailers.
Monday's call for action is specifically asking to make the resale of products bought in bulk using automated bots illegal, saying that doing so would "[deny] unscrupulous vendors the chance to make themselves vast profits at the expense of genuine gamers and computer users, while also deterring fraudulent cybercriminal activity."
The motion was tabled by Douglas Chapman, the Scottish National Party MP for Dunfermline and West Fife and, at the time of writing, had been signed by 20 MPs.
Similar guidelines already exist in the UK regarding the resale of concert or football match tickets. The latter is forbidden unless the football club explicitly allows it -- doing so without the club agreeing to it could get you banned from the stadium. When it comes to gigs, it is not illegal to resale a ticket, but resellers are under the obligation to be transparent about the price of purchase, the potential terms of use, and so on.