Sony says PS5 could be difficult to find into 2022 - Ars Technica

Enlarge / This Sony engineer can get a PS5, but millions of others can't, thanks to short supplies that are likely to continue.

Sony thinks demand could continue to outstrip supply of the PlayStation 5 into 2022. That's according to a Bloomberg report citing a number of unnamed analysts who listened in on an explanatory call following Sony's recent earnings report.

"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 reportedly said.

Sony has been warning for months that worldwide shortages of semiconductors and other components have made it hard to increase production for the PS5. But this is the most direct sign that those shortages will extend past this year and into the next.

Sony President and CEO Jim Ryan said in February that he expected PS5 supplies would "get better every month throughout 2021," leading to "really decent numbers indeed" by the second half of this year. But Totoki amended that statement in April to say that it's "not likely" Sony could "drastically increase the supply" before the company's fiscal year ends in March 2022.

Supply problems aside, demand for the PS5 seems to be matching that of the early days of the PS4, which has sold over 115 million units to date. The PS5's 7.8 million sales through March and 14.8 million additional projected sales in the current fiscal year are broadly in line with sales of the PlayStation 4 at the same point in its life cycle.

But while the PS4 was in short supply in the early months of 2014, by August of that year, Wired was citing the lack of retail PS4 shortages as one reason behind the system's unexpected success at the time. In other words, the difference between shelves full of PS4s and shelves empty of PS5s is due to the supply, not demand, levels between the two systems.

Totoki reportedly told analysts that he "can’t imagine demand dropping easily" for the PS5, and that situation would continue to put pressure on Sony to increase supplies in any way it can. But with the company already taking a loss on every system sold, spending more money to secure scarce chips over competitors could be difficult (if it's possible at all).

Put it all together, and you have a situation that could mirror that of the Nintendo Wii, which remained hard to find on store shelves for well over a year after its late-2006 release. That situation got so bad that former Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime had to actively deny that there was a conspiracy to keep Wii supplies artificially low.

Today, of course, Nintendo is facing the same semiconductor shortages as Sony in trying to keep up with demand for the Switch, as are many carmakers. All told, it looks like the "big scramble" for silicon chips is set to continue for a while.

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