Bots, Please: How to Snag an Xbox Series X (or S) for Below MSRP Using Chrome Developer Tools

So far, the only winners of the Xbox Series X/S launch are those with bots instantly draining inventory from retailers as soon as they go in stock. But it turns out the arguably most reputable seller of the Xbox makes it pretty darn easy to snag one if you know how to insert JavaScript into Chrome and have a little patience. (I won’t mention this reseller / site directly by name because I suffer from liticaphobia, but you may be able to figure it out by clicking the many links throughout!)

With one URL, two snippets of JavaScript, and some patience, you too can snag a brand new Xbox for less than MSRP! (The site these tricks work for gives $5 cashback via Rakuten for Series X purchases as of writing this + you can pay using a gift card balance, and this site’s gift cards are 10% off at places like Costco.com or Dell.com.)

Step 1. Navigate to the Console Listing

For 99.9% of the time since the new XBox launched, there hasn’t been a way to add a console to your cart because it is always sold out. But you can navigate directly to a page with an “Add to Cart” button if you know the right URL. I stumbled upon such links for both the Series X and Series S via a few Reddit posts. Hint: I found changing “en-gb” to “en-us” in the URLs mentioned in these Reddit posts to be very helpful as an American!

Step 2. Add the Xbox to Your Cart

Once you are on the console listing page, you’ll likely see that the console is “Out of Stock”, which seemingly makes it impossible to add to cart. It turns out the only thing that’s preventing you from doing the required action of “Choose your own console” is an HTML element’s “disabled” attribute. If only you could remove all disabled attributes with a line of code in the Chrome Developer Tools Console. Perhaps, something as simple as this?

$('*').removeAttr('disabled')

Step 3. Continue to Checkout & Click “Place Order” ‘Til It Works

You’ve added the Xbox to your cart, set your shipping address and payment type, and finally clicked the “Place Order” button. But you get an error. You try again. You get the same error. This will happen dozens of times, maybe hundreds of times, maybe thousands of times. But as many users have found out, the order will eventually go through!

But who has the time for clicking the same button 1000 times? Again, the Developer Tools Console shows it’s the real MVP. Using JavaScript like that which user IMBigWillie shared on Slickdeals automates the tedious task of constantly re-clicking “Place Order”.

The JavaScript will keep trying to place your Xbox order until either a.) The site forces you to log back in because your session is over, or b.) your order goes through. (If you have to log back in you can just run the same code in Chrome Tools again.)

The same Slickdeals thread has lots of success stories, and though some users said it took hours and multiple re-logins before the order went through, they were successful all the same. It’s not such a big deal that it takes a while since you can just have the tab running in the background. You only need to check in on it / maybe re-login every once in a while.

Step 4. Enjoy Your XBox

Congrats! Your XBox order is in and while it may take a while to ship, you can rest easy knowing a very reputable seller will send a console your way eventually.

  1 comment for “Bots, Please: How to Snag an Xbox Series X (or S) for Below MSRP Using Chrome Developer Tools

  1. NZ
    November 19, 2020 at 7:08 am

    You are the man

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