Sony Gifts PS5 to the Person Who Was First in Line for the PS4 and PS4 Pro

Joey "Shinogu" Chiu might not be the world's biggest PlayStation fan, but he's certainly one of the luckiest in recent memory. Back in 2013, he was the first in line to pick up the PS4 outside of Sony's launch event in New York City. Four years ago to the day, Chiu was also the first to get a PS4 Pro. This time around, Chiu didn't have to wait-Sony's console came to him.

As Chiu revealed on Twitter, Sony surprised him today by sending over a PS5 in a commemorative, personalized case. Beneath the PS5 logo on the case, it reads:

This isn't the first time Sony's showed some love to Chiu for his efforts. In 2014, he was placed at the center of a large promotional mural Sony made for that year's E3. Getting the new console a few days early on its own would be nice (hey, Astro's Playroom should be on there), but Sony also went a step further by including a code for the PS5's launch lineup in the box.

For the sake of COVID-19 safety, Sony isn't even putting out PS5 units at brick-and-mortar retailers on launch day. There are no lines for Chiu or anyone else to be first in. With that in mind, this is a pretty nice and considerate way for Sony to honor Chiu's commitment to its last generation consoles.

As we've seen today with sporadic online restocks of the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S, it seems there's enough demand for those consoles to keep them sold out at most places. We'll see if the same holds true for the PS5 in a couple days; it's nice, though, that Chiu won't have to hold his own in a digital line against bots and obsessive refreshers come Thursday.

Read USgamer's review of the PlayStation 5 here.