The Persona 5 community was upset after Amazon sent out cancellation orders en masse earlier today with the JRPG being only weeks away from launch. Those who pre-ordered Persona 5’s standard Steelbook edition, as well as the Take Your Heart Premium edition each reportedly received cancellation notices. Amazon has since clarified that not all pre-orders had been affected.
According to Amazon, only the Steelbook and Take Your Heart Editions of Persona 5 were cancelled, specifically due to a manufacturer-caused defect.
“The actual reason why the order was canceled is that the entire inventory Amazon had received from the manufacturer had a major defect that was detected by one of our valued customer like you’re [sic] and then an investigation began to check if all the items have the same issue and we had to cancel mass orders and return the item back to the manufacturer.” Amazon said.
The Persona 5 cancellations seem to solely be associated with Amazon pre-orders at this time, as customers of other online retail outlets have not reported similar cancellations. Publisher Atlus has confirmed this, recently tweeting that they are working with Amazon to figure out what the problem is in hope of correcting it.
However, what is interesting is the official cancellation email made the issue out to be much more significant than just a standard defect. According to one received email, Amazon cited “regulated materials classified as dangerous goods” as the purpose of the cancellation. They noted that these types of products have to be delivered in a certain way and that Amazon could not ultimately provide that.
In addition to that, one preorder customer claims that Amazon has already told him it was a mistake and that he should re-order the game. “Well, I got a response from Amazon. They said it was a mistake, and that I should reorder the item. They also said they would wave shipping costs. I don’t know if this is a case by case situation, but if you had your order cancelled, contact Amazon and they might respond with the same information now.”
Persona 5 launches on April 4th for the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3.