Some Xbox Series X buyers are about to get a huge disappointment

The sloppy way in which Amazon lists products matched with Microsoft's confusing Xbox naming scheme made for a perfect storm this week. The Xbox Series X was released on pre-order, pushing the console to the number one "gainers in sales rank over the past 24 hours" spot in the "Video Games" category. Not far behind that, in the number 4 spot, was the Xbox One X.

Did you buy the wrong Xbox this week? Take a peek at your receipts and pre-order emails and make double-sure you've dropped cash on the right device. You might be in for a surprise in the very near future.

As pointed out by Andrew Alerts on Twitter, at around 3PM Central Time on the 22nd of September, 2020, the Microsoft Xbox One X 1TB Console with Wireless Controller was listed with a 747% gain in sales rank on Amazon in the Video Games category. That put it in an overall rank of 331 where, in the hour before, it had been 2,804 (of all Amazon products, as such).

Surely it's not too difficult to see the ... differences between the names of the consoles Microsoft's sold with Xbox in the title?

SEE TOO: Xbox Series X Preorder was a Disaster

• Xbox

• Xbox 360

• Xbox 360

• Xbox One

• Xbox One S

• Xbox One X

• Xbox Series S

• Xbox Series X

It's possible that a whole lot of consumers purchased the wrong console this week. It's also possible that the relative lack of Xbox One X consoles (in this specific configuration) for the few weeks leading up to this week resulted in a major spike in sales on the 22nd. It could also be that consumers disappointed they were unable to access the Xbox Series X decided they'd just pull the trigger on the Xbox One X, instead.

The most satisfying possibility here is that automated purchase bots saw the relatively newly-stocked Xbox units as "new" and decided to purchase a whole bunch of units when they should've waited for the Xbox Series X.

In any case, a whole bunch of Xbox Series X and Xbox One X boxes will be unboxed in the next few weeks, and a bunch of boxes of both the Xbox Series X and Xbox One X will be in trash heaps by the end of the year – of that you can be sure.