Sony Now Expects PS5 Shortages Through 2022

During a call with financial analysts, Sony warned that it now expects PlayStation 5 availability problems to continue through the end of 2022.

“I don’t think demand is calming down this year, and even if we secure a lot more devices and produce many more units of the PlayStation 5 next year, our supply wouldn’t be able to catch up with demand,” Sony CFO Hiroki Totoki said during the call, which has not been made public. “We have sold more than 100 million units of the PlayStation 4 and considering our market share and reputation, I can’t imagine demand dropping easily.”

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As you may recall, there were questions about whether Sony would be ready to launch the PlayStation 5 during the 2020 pandemic, but Sony insisted it would be able to do so. And the firm did launch the new console family in November, as promised, while warning that production wouldn’t be able to meet demand.

In late April, Sony revealed that it was able to sell almost 8 million PS5 consoles since the launch, beating the number of PS4 consoles it has sold during a comparable period 7 years earlier. But it could have sold many, many more and the consoles have remained sold out everywhere.

Now, it looks like that problem, which was originally expected to clear up by late 2021, will continue through at least the end of next year.

Rivals like Nintendo and Microsoft face the same component shortages, of course. Nintendo, which had hoped to produce between 28 and 29 million Switch consoles in 2021, now only expects to make—and immediately sell—about 25.5 million units. Microsoft, meanwhile, hasn’t updated its own schedule for meeting the demand for the Xbox Series X|S, but it’s reasonable to assume they’re in the same boat as Sony.

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Conversation 16 comments

  • madthinus

    Premium Member
    10 May, 2021 - 9:50 am

    <p>Combined with Apple reportingly moving to 5nm, TSMC might have a little more 7nm capacity later in 2021. This makes sense. </p>

    • Mikael Koskinen

      Premium Member
      10 May, 2021 - 11:31 am

      <p>I think Apple is already on 5nm. Both the M1 and and the A14 in iPhone 12 are 5nm.</p>

  • glenn8878

    10 May, 2021 - 11:12 am

    <p>I can’t wait for new silicon plants to come online. It won’t be until 2023 or 2024.</p>

  • lvthunder

    Premium Member
    10 May, 2021 - 11:18 am

    <p>This chip issue is really hurting everyone. Ford has the parking lot of the Louisville speedway full of brand new trucks just waiting for chips so they can ship them to dealers. Chevy went a different way and shut down the production of some of their vehicles. Intel (and others) new fabs can’t come quickly enough.</p>

    • Jester

      10 May, 2021 - 2:54 pm

      <p>I work at a Auto Dealer. The new car lot is only a 1/4 full. Parts are getting hard to get, most are back ordered with no ETA. </p>

    • LT1 Z51

      Premium Member
      10 May, 2021 - 4:20 pm

      <p>F-150’s are parked all over Dearborn. Something like 10k or more. I think it’s like this near every plant.</p>

    • red.radar

      Premium Member
      10 May, 2021 - 7:34 pm

      <p>Its not just "chips" its everything. Resistors.. caps.. diodes.. even hard plastic to make connectors. Honestly it feels like the entire supply chain has collapsed. MBAs cost reduced all the reduncy in the system and combined with Just In time low inventory mantra there just wasn’t room for error. All the risk tollerance was engineered away to maximize short term profit </p><p><br></p><p>Sure there is a lot companies that will sell you a chip. Dig deeper fewer make their own chips … dig deeper they all get the raw materials, equipment and tools from even fewer suppliers. There is a shocking lack of competition and diversity in the supply chain. Everyone wants to make software and services and develop value out of thin air. Nothing significant is invested in the hardware or supply chain to support it. No one wants to make anything anymore it is too capital intensive and the margins are too thin. So the market is left to the old guard to consolidate themselves down to fewer companies so they can survive. </p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p><br></p>

  • PhilipVasta

    10 May, 2021 - 1:20 pm

    <p>Why did this whole chip shortage happen again? I don’t think I’ve ever been clear on that.</p>

    • bettyblue

      10 May, 2021 - 1:45 pm

      <p>IMHO perfect storm. </p><p><br></p><p>Prior to the covid they were already at or near capacity. Covid hits and those factories shut down for a short time (1-3 months??). Then you had lots of money being tossed out by governments in the form of aid, stimulus checks etc, with lots of it being spent of niceties like new gaming consoles etc. Then you had lots of new tech coming out last fall. PS5, XSX, XSS, AMD 5000 series CPU’s, Nvidia 3000 series, the AMD 6800 series video cards and Apple’s M1 chips. All of which hammered the chip makers.</p>

      • lvthunder

        Premium Member
        10 May, 2021 - 2:45 pm

        <p>There is always that much new stuff coming out though.</p>

        • bettyblue

          10 May, 2021 - 8:10 pm

          <p>Yes and no. NVIDIA and AMD launching at the same time? Rarely happens and those video card are new every 2-3 years (whole new generation). Same for the consoles, every 5-7 years for new stuff that has lower yields. AMD 5000 series CPU are hot, hot with gamers.</p>

      • MoopMeep

        10 May, 2021 - 4:15 pm

        <p>Wasn’t china buying a lot of chips too because of tariffs and worries that trump might cut them off.</p><p>I wonder what would happen if China actually tries to take back Taiwan, that would really mess things up.</p>

    • lvthunder

      Premium Member
      10 May, 2021 - 2:52 pm

      <p>I’ve never seen a credibly sourced article as to why the shortage happened or why it’s so deep. I think COVID showed a huge hole in the manufacturing sector as a whole. </p><p><br></p><p>I know at the start of the pandemic President Trump was upset that so much of the medical supplies were coming from China instead of being made locally. Canada is finding out about that as well since they don’t make any vaccines in Canada. They are really hurting because they have to rely on other countries to make vaccines available for purchase.</p><p><br></p><p>I think Intel is very smart to have invested in upgrading their production facilities here in the US. I think that will be very profitable for them.</p>

    • coeus89

      10 May, 2021 - 4:53 pm

      <p>My understanding is this. When covid hit, everyone expected demand to go down. In addition to the lockdowns, production was cut significantly. Sub component orders all the way down the supply chain were reduced. A lot of production was temporarily shut down due to lockdowns too. Then, the opposite happened. Demand for new PCs, Game Consoles, Graphics Chips, etc. increased instead of decreasing. Even new car demand went up. So they ended up in the hole. Supply was ‘tight’ to begin with. So now they don’t have the capacity to dig themselves out of the hole. They’ll perpetually be behind on production until demand drops or more production comes online. Production doesn’t come online overnight and even new production has to trickle through the supply chain.</p>

  • webdev511

    Premium Member
    10 May, 2021 - 4:13 pm

    <p>My tinfoil hat theory on Xbox Series X is they are holding back inventory for Halo Infinite Launch</p>

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