During the insane pre-order rush to secure gamers next-gen consoles, some found themselves turning to EU stores for stock availability. I was one such gamer and managed to pre-order the Xbox Series X from the German Amazon. 
If you’re a UK gamer, you can still purchase the Series X/PS5 from the German, Spanish or Italian Amazon. All you need is a replacement power cable. Read on to make sure you buy the right one
Of course, once I received the console, I would be unable to hook it up to my mains due to the EU 2 pin plug connecter. I could go down the road of buying an adaptor, but due to the power required, this is never recommended (as adaptors are really only suited to smaller travel items).
Instead, I needed a replacement power cable for my Xbox Series X. After looking up on power consumption, I found that both next-gen consoles need to command up to 315w of power. A figure 8 connection was the most obvious addition the Series X power cable would need, but it was the voltage and fuse that I really needed to look up.
Luckily, I already had a PS5 to hand, so it was just a case of checking the cables specs. Let’s take a look and see what we can find:
The PS5’s power cable specs
The main plug and appliance connector (in this case, the figure 8), should give you the information you need on the power cables voltage. 
I-SHENG are the official electrical cable suppliers for Sony in the UK. Give them a search and see if you can find one with a figure 8 connector, 250v and 5a fuse. If not, just do what I did below
However, after shopping around on Amazon we could only find 250v cables (most 240v) with the choice of either 3 or 13amp fuses (quite a jump!). Our efforts in reaching-out to well known electrical online retails, were cut-short with brush-off replies or no response at all.
Check both the plug and the figure 8 connector as they should label the voltage the cable can carry (250v in this case – perfect for PS5 and Series X)
Finding a 250v plug with a 5amp fuse is quite difficult, so as long as you make sure to buy a figure 8 power cable that can carry 250v, all you’ll need to do is replace the fuse. Just make sure the plug offers interchangeable fuses (you’ll be able to tell as the fuse will be visible, like in the photo below).
The PS5 uses a 5amp fuse. A hard one to find pre-installed in a 240/250v power cable. Make sure the fuse is visible in the plug and you can change out the fuse to what you need.
Should you use 3amps, 5amps or 13amps?
This is the question, as in theory, the higher the amp, the lower the protection to the power cable. Fuses are designed to be fragile and they will break/blow if the electrical flow from the plug – to the cable becomes dangerously unstable. If the fuse didn’t do this, the cable could catch fire (and that’s after potentially causing damage to the appliance its connected to).
Yeah, you can see now why I wanted to look more into this. However, if you lookup UK electrical safety, a 3amp fuse is recommended for any appliance using 700watts or less. Then, any appliances that need high energy to drastically alter temperature quickly (kitchen white-goods and air conditioners) will need the jump to 13amp fuses.
The best cable setup to use
Technically, the figure 8 connector at 250v with a 3amp fuse, would be fine for the Series X’s power cables. However, Sony went for the 5amp fuse for their PS5 console? This may be due to the fluctuating watts, that totally depend on what specific games you’re playing. I’d personally recommend going for the 5amp option…just don’t go higher than this as it’s a games console, not a microwave.
Series X and PS5 Replacement Power Cables
