Finding the PlayStation 5 on the market today is already difficult. But this latest generation console will be increasingly difficult to find because Sony is reportedly cutting PS5 production.
Based on a report from Bloomberg, two sources familiar with Sony's operations claim that the Japanese tech giant is cutting PS5 production by up to one million units.
Sony originally planned to produce 16 million PS5 units between April 2021 and March 2022, but the target was revised to 15 million units, as quoted from The Verge, Saturday (11/13/2021).
Sony itself hopes to sell 14.8 million units of the PS5 this financial year. This revision of the target is not that big, but it shows how limited the PS5 supply will be in the future.
The Bloomberg report says Sony is not only experiencing component shortages caused by the global chip crisis, but also logistical problems.
Shipments of critical components sometimes don't arrive on time, and the uneven distribution of vaccines in the countries where Sony manufactures the chips makes the PS5 production process more complicated.
Sony predicts it will sell 22.6 million units of the PS5 in the financial year starting in April 2022, but its production partners think the target will be difficult to meet. In other words, the PS5 will still be hard to find until next year.
The global chip crisis has also affected several game console manufacturers. Recently, Nintendo revised its Switch sales forecast to 1.5 million units this financial year due to component shortages.
Meanwhile, Valve announced that it would delay the launch of the Steam Deck, its handheld console that was announced a few months ago. The plan for this console will be launched in December, but Valve announced this console will only ship in February 2022.
