Fans eagerly anticipating the new Persona 5 Royal special edition are in for a bad time if ordering from Amazon. If like me, you were looking forward to buying the Phantom Thieves edition of Persona 5R, then you may want to avoid Amazon. Many would-be owners have reported cancellations for their Persona 5R pre-orders of that edition of the game. Amazon have allegedly failed to secure any copies of the special edition. In turn they have cancelled all orders across Canada and some in the UK.

Thanks for the delayed notice I guess

I’m honestly a little (incredibly) pissed off with this. I’d been super excited for my copy and the collectibles that come along with it. Unfortunately, I received a cancellation email a few days ago on Feb. 15 – two months after placing my pre-order.

I’m not alone in this situation, as many other would-be players appear to share my disappointment. Redditors have been helpful in offering solutions though, linking to other listings across websites like Play Asia, Best Buy and Gamestop.

The main offerings, like Best Buy, have already run out of stock, leaving lesser-known sites as the only alternatives. Checking Ebay leaves you with inflated prices – some even tripling the amount of the original product. Contacting Amazon is fruitless as well, with customer service reps stating that they lack information on the issue as a whole.

Blast from the past

This is not the first time users have had this type of issue with Amazon either. Back during the lead-up to the Persona 5 release, Amazon cancelled orders of the special editions of the game, citing manufacturer defects. They later sent free copies of Persona 5 to customers who had their copies cancelled. This hasn’t just happened to customers looking for Persona 5R though, some have reported it happening for other games like Tales of Berseria and other Atlus titles like Catherine.

In the future, it seems Amazon may be looking at diminishing pre-orders for highly anticipated games. I’m not saying they deserve it, but if cancelling pre-orders is a common occurrence, then eventually people won’t be looking to pre-order from them. I know I won’t be pre-ordering from them anytime soon.