It's still dark when the brave first begin to line up outside a Tokyo electronics store hoping to buy a PlayStation or Xbox game console, a scene that has become…

In search of a PlayStation 5 since February, Tetsuya, 50, joined a queue of several dozen people shortly after 6:30 a.m. in front of a shop in Akihabara, the 'geek' district of the Japanese capital.

But around 8:00 a.m., a uniformed employee comes to announce that the store has not received either PS5 or Xbox that day.

The crowd disperses quickly and silently.