A jostling crowd swamped an electronics shop in Tokyo on Saturday morning hoping to buy the new Playstation 5 game console.

The police were called in and the sale was cancelled after 15 minutes of chaos, an eyewitness said.

"There were clearly more patrons than tickets, nobody waited for instruction or an announcement and just swarmed the staff to the point displays were ruined, the staff had to climb onto tables, the cash registers and main sales counter were pushed back into the storage area, customers currently paying for other goods were pushed out of the way," said Dave Gibson who shared the video online.

The capital and other large Japanese cities are currently under a state of emergency as Covid-19 cases surge. Restaurants have been asked to close early and people stay at home, but the measures are voluntary and not enforced.