I bought 'USED' Consoles from Xbox, PlayStation and Nintendo

In this video, I put major gaming companies to the test by buying their official refurbished consoles. I picked up a PS5, Xbox Series X, and Nintendo Switch directly from Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo to see if they're actually worth your money. What I discovered about their quality, pricing, and warranty policies changed my perspective on refurbished gaming hardware. Plus, I crack them all open to show you exactly what's inside these "certified refurbished" machines.

Chapter Titles:
0:00 PS5 Unboxing
2:36 DualSense Unboxing
3:42 PS5 Quality Check
4:50 Switch Unboxing
7:09 Switch Quality Check
7:58 Series X Unboxing
11:09 Series X Quality Check
11:57 Console Teardowns

[gamenightindustriesiceybud]

I worked for 1.5 years at a sony repair facility, around the days of the first ps3, and i can say even though the parts was great we still would brake down complete consoles into parts before we even tested them.. they should be mint throughout because of this.
Love your content btw💚

[Superboologan]

Aren't most company refurbished consoles just returns anyway? I thought I'd heard somewhere that the majority were just barely used open box units that they repackaged.

[VintageFenrir]

Honestly, I was against AAs until I got a Quest 2. I have rechargeable AAs I use, and while they don't last as long as an internal rechargeable battery, it's SO much more convenient to just take them out and throw new ones in while the old ones recharge. They're also incredibly cheap, and I don't have to worry about replacing an internal battery when it starts to degrade.

[holy_lettuce]

Again the Double A Battery for Xbox controllers is a non issue @Austin Evans. It helps people not just toss out controllers because they don't wanna risk ripping a ribbon cable in their playstation or switch controllers. The replaceable battery packs are also pretty good and you can use those and leave the same back cover on and it look and work just the same except no hassle when the rechargeable eventually dies lol

[ricozkirihara]

Austin: In and out, not in and around.
My wife would disagree. 🤣

[Fliim]

Hard disagree with the AA hate…. Rechargeable AA batteries are cheap af and you never have to worry about the battery being the reason your product is junk 10 years from now. That’s the only reason I’ll use the g305 until it’s no longer compatible with windows. I’ll never have to worry about sourcing a weird battery cell to fix it.

[Vikturus]

8:54 funny where I live ( NZ ) consumer rights wont accept this. If it fails within a acceptable period ( say warranty 1 year and it fails within 3 months after 12 month warranty expires ) the retailer STILL has to take it back under consumers guarantees act.

[terrypukalo]

When I bought the Xbox Series X in 2020 at launch (from a store - I was lucky) it worked great for a few days and suddenly it just stopped powering on. I was super disappointed. I called customer support and they sent me a replacement console within a few days. This was at the time when both PS5 and Xbox Series just released and getting any console was damn near impossible unless you dumped over $1000 on it. I was super impressed how fast I received my new console and I sent back the old one with their box. It was a quick process. They only sent me a brown box with the new console well insulated, and I swapped it with my "old" console. Very efficient. But my original Series X most likely had next to no dust in it and had no damage so it does not surprise me that all of Austin's refurbished consoles are in near perfect shape.

[watercannonscollaboration]

10:15 okay, in defense of devices using AAs instead of (proprietary) rechargeable batteries, when it comes time to replace something because batteries don’t last forever, it’s far easier if it’s a device using AAs and you have a bunch of rechargeable AAs compared to trying to find something that was super obscure and there’s about 5 devices out in the wild. Maybe this isn’t as relevant for something as ubiquitous as a Xbox controller, but something less standardized, like a battery lamp or a pepper grinder

[evanappling]

I bought my Xbox refurbished from Microsoft and when I was going to buy I talked with the tech people before I bought because I was iffy about purchasing a refurbished one and they told me that most of the time when they have refurbished consoles that sometimes people who have bought a new one and sent back they would move that returned console to refurbished. Mine was brand new when I got mine and have not had problems since. Definitely worth buying refurbished.

[booshwilson]

AA batteries ensure that I can use my controller indefinitely instead of having to throw it away when the non removable battery inside eventually craps out

[TheViperLife]

I feel like I'm living in a different dimension when people act like $50 off full retail (or $100 for the disc model) is suddenly a good deal. If this was $150/$200 off, especially now that Slim and Pro's are out there, then yeah, I'd feel like that was a good deal. This just feels how it should be anyways...we need to stop acting like Sony is doing something mind blowing because we're so used to their greed.

[Tho_Me]

I wonder if Microsoft has so much unsold stock that they just repack them and sell them as refurbished. That way they don't have to lower the official MSRP to increase sales.

[Bluestar]

Two of the biggest factors that the manufacturers have are age and exclusivity. Most of the consoles they get back are a year or less old. They don't have to worry about receiving Austin's 20-year-old PlayStation 2. And then there's exclusivity. They are working with the same 1 or 2 products everyday all day. They become experts on how they sound, smell, look, feel. Swear someplace like GameStop has to worry about Austin sending in his 3DO that only one person in the entire facility has ever worked on 10 years ago

[Neekk_Oh]

AA batteries and ergonomics are the reasons the Xbox Controllers are the best controllers on the market…

[emilyshabang]

If the Switch is actually just a return that was either never opened or maybe used for like a Im ok with it. The concern i would have is the battery. Even if it has a 1 year warranty, do you want to have to go through that process?

[humancannonball]

I got a refurbished Wii U from Nintendo years ago and that thing was like new at a pretty big discount. They even used to have refurbished game discs for cheap. Never a better time to be a Nintendo fan than when their hardware is failing.

[pawpawg]

I bought a refurb Switch lite and it was 20 cheaper than amazon refurb and I swear it was brand new. Not a single scratch or blemish. I think a lot of these are test units or had an issues in the factory.

[Spacepilot]

I could literally care less about the batteries. Yeah it would be nice for them to be in there. I have rechargeables so yeah who cares.
I also dont have to quit gaming to let my controller charge.

But when/if the batteries go bad i can just buy new ones and not have to buy a whole new controller.

[ChaseSchleich]

Dualsense prices are insane. You'd expect they'd be around $60-$65 new, but they're $79 for the basic model. Sony isn't selling anything at a loss or even at a small mark up anymore. They're making 30% or more from everything they sell now.