People are having trouble even getting a PS5 with demand far outstripping the supply available, but some buyers are already throwing the console into industrial shredders, watching the thing get reduced to literal bits as it’s torn apart by the high-strength metal teeth. We’ve seen the literal horror video, a snuff film of the highest order, and now you have to suffer through it too.
The PS5 industrial shredder video was shared by The Verge’s Tom Warren, originating on SLAM Gaming as a user submission. It’s unclear where the video came from before that or who exactly went so far as to throw away $500 (yeah, it’s the disc-based version). It shows nearly a minute of cut together footage as the PS5 is run through an industrial grinder, munched up far beyond repair. Yup, while you’re still out here trying to secure one, there’s at least one PS5 console that has been torn to shreds.
this is seriously painful to watch pic.twitter.com/TrgZ9QnrwS
— Tom Warren (@tomwarren) December 2, 2020
We agree Tom. It is seriously painful to watch. And if you couldn’t make it through the video, let me describe it in detail for you. The first cut is the PS5 popping apart as the shredder tries to grab the large console. The outer face plates and disc drive pop off, looking like Wolverine had ripped his claws through it.
To facilitate the grind, the extra bits are removed for a moment, and just the center core of the console is shoved into the grinder, fan first. It’s not clear which fan model this PS5 had, but I suppose it doesn’t really matter now, does it? The PS5 is a big machine, so the shredder has a bit of trouble getting it all torn apart, requiring a few reverses and restarts to work the console all the way through. Just before its finished, the person shredding the console shows the crunched heatsink flanked by the angry teeth marks, the console already far beyond repair. But it’s not done yet.
Back into the shredder the remaining pieces of the PS5 go, including the main board and the disc drive that was removed earlier. Once it’s finished eating everything up, the camera shows the pile of PS5 pieces, sifting through them while a cheeky “PS5 for Sale!” text banner flashes across the video.
Because the origins of the video are unclear, it’s unknown just who is going around tossing a PS5 into an industrial shredder. Was this a scalper who’d already made so much profit, he could afford to throw away an extra console? Was this an angry purchaser having issues with crashes that he just couldn’t handle anymore? Or was it just someone tossing around $500 for clout (which arguably didn’t work, given the origins of the video being difficult to assess)? Maybe Demon’s Souls was simply too hard and this was their way of throwing the controller against the wall.
As satisfying as watching things run through an industrial shredder is, this is just painful to watch for someone who has two PS5s. I can’t imagine how this video plays to the people still struggling to obtain one. Fortunately, retailers are starting to take a stance against obvious scalper groups and bots, with one cancelling a bunch of orders from a notorious PS5 scalper group who had previously secured more nearly 3500 consoles for resale at markup with “no regrets.”
And yet, while consoles are going for nearly double retail, here’s one that someone is literally throwing away in one of the most heinously destructive ways possible. Can we see what an Xbox Series X going through a shredder looks like next?
