Sony Warns Tight PlayStation 5 Supply to Extend Into Next Year

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-10/sony-warns-tight-playstation-5-supply-to-extend-into-next-year

Sony Group Corp. warned a group of analysts the PlayStation 5 will remain in short supply through 2022, suggesting the company will be constrained in its ability to boost sales targets for its latest games console.

While reporting financial results in late April, the Japanese conglomerate said it had sold 7.8 million units of the console through March 31, and it is aiming to sell at least 14.8 million units in the current fiscal year. That would keep it on pace to match the trajectory of the popular PlayStation 4, which has sold in excess of 115.9 million units to date.

In a briefing after those results, Sony told analysts it is challenging to keep up with strong demand. The PS5 has been difficult to find in stock since its release in November, in part because of shortages in components such as semiconductors, and the company hasn’t given an official estimate for when it expects supply to normalize.

“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,” Chief Financial Officer Hiroki Totoki said at the briefing, according to several people who attended and asked not to be named as it wasn’t public.

A Sony spokesman declined to comment.

I think if that's true it would be the second longest consecutive console shortage ever, after Wii and not counting Switch in Japan.

I blame it on the plastic shortage...

Freakish yuuge azz TumorStation needs a redesign and fast . lol :P

Makes sense. It ain't easy to prepare for the demand of the fastest selling console in history.

Meanwhile the XSX/S is selling so poorly that Microsoft still won't announce sales numbers.

So the semiconductor shortage is a serious issue not just for the Switch, but also for the PS5. Is the shortage is due to huge demand and not anything to do with the coronavirus pandemic?

Switch has a much smaller die than PS5, so of course anything larger than that will be affected even more. This is affecting everything that uses semiconductors though, from consoles, to PC components, to smartphones, and even smart cars. High demand and droughts in clear areas affecting the production of wafers mean that fabrication factories just can't keep up. Building more factories will help, but a single factory takes 1-3 years and billions of dollars to make (I've heard upwards of $3 billion per fab).

So yeah, this a global issue. It's 100% affecting XBox as well, and even Apple has been having to delay products because of it (though they just get whatever parts they ask for so they don't have to worry about shortages of their products).

Man, that's crazy. Lucky I got mine.

The semiconductor shortage is affecting practically everything. It is even affective cars, where factory slowdowns due to the chip shortage are constraining supply and driving prices upwards. It's going to be an awful time to buy a car for the foreseeable future.

Since the semiconductor shortages are affecting the console makers, will there be a chance that they will raise prices of their consoles to reflect that? I feel that if the PS5 supply issue is not resolved soon, Sony may well be compelled to raise the console's price.

I’m in no rush to get one currently myself so I’m fine but it sucks for those who do want one right now. Pretty crazy how things have been going recently with this semiconductor shortage.

That's unfortunate.

I was in no rush too but now returnal is out i need thaT SYSTEM RIGHT NOW!

@onesiphorus: Sony won't raise MSRP, but retailers might choose to raise their prices to manage demand.

I still kinda don't understand why there is such a big parts shortage. Is Sony making these parts themselves and can't keep up? Do they not want to spend more on machines that could produce more?

Or did they agree to a contract with an outside company to make them and the number agreed to deliver per year was just way too low? Or the company said they could make x amount and they aren't able to match that number they promised?

Good news is that no-one who doesn't own one of the next gen systems is missing out.

@Pedro: Bro i'm missing out i want to play returnal and demon souls right now i can't wait

I'm in no rush, might just buy it when an upgraded/redesigned version comes out

Taiwan is facing a historic drought too which may impact wafer production later. TSMC probably unlikely to move production oversea to ensure tech not stolen to China so well, its gonna be a long wait for those waiting for their pc parts/consoles.

thats fine by me, should be more games worth playing on the system by the time its more readily available.

I already went through the hardware scavenger hunt for my RTX 3070 not in a rush to go through that again lol

Just release a smaller, slimmer or prettier version soon and all shortages will be forgiven.

We're seeing the effects of the global-wide shut-downs of last year.

If Nintendo never raised Wii's price, I don't think Sony will raise PS5's.

What ever I try I can't track one down seem to constantly miss drops.

This is the key reason why it is a global issue, and one that the current American administration feels is a matter of national security. None of the companies we all are customers of make these parts themselves. They contract and outsource this to other companies. And there are only a few.

It's the same for everything with some form of electrical components. For my new car, there was only one left in Ontario with the packages I wanted. Fortunately the dealership agreed to sell it to my local dealership so I could buy one... Otherwise i'd have had to buy out my Cruze or buy something lower-end.

I posted about this above, but I'll add more information. There are only a few companies making chips for the entire world in all sectors, and demand for everything is so high that it's causing issues. I'm not sure how you haven't noticed that there are component shortages everywhere, not just for Sony. Sony gets their chips from TSMC. Other than Sony, other customers of TSMC include:

• Microsoft
• Nintendo
• AMD (CPUs, GPUs, and APUs)
• Some Intel products (though Intel mostly uses their own factories)
• Nvidia (except the RTX 30 GPUs, which are currently made by Samsung)
• Qualcomm
• Mediatek
• Apple
• Pretty much everyone making chips for all kinds of smart devices, including cars

As you can see, that's a lot. That means that the demand for each of these affects everything else. They just can't keep up with the excessive demand right now. And I know you're thinking, "just pick another company," but semiconductors are complicated. It's basically only TSMC, Intel, and Samsung that fabricate them, and the tech they use isn't interchangeable; changing from one to another requires redesigning the chip and could take a long time. Even if they were planning on trying that, it would still take until next year at the earliest to even begin production of the new chips, which might run hotter and use more power than the current ones. And for the next obvious question, TSMC is already working on building new plants, one of which they hop to open by the end of the year. The problem is that the plants take years and billions of dollars to build, and there's no way to speed the process up significantly. On top of all of that, there are environmental issues at play; making silicon wafers requires a lot of water, and Taiwan (TSMC = Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.) has been experiencing a massive drought, which is slowing production even more. And of course Apple is a higher priority than everyone else, so they're the ones getting first dibs on the wafers they can actually produce.

So, basically the issue is that all of the plants that can be used are at capacity and it's not possible to order more. It's also not possible for Sony to just make their own plants because... Well, if Apple, Microsoft and Nvidia can't do it I don't think you can realistically expect Sony to. Trust me, Apple would already be working on that if it were a viable option. They love having control over everything in their products. To my understanding, entering the semiconductor fabrication industry at this point would several years and possibly tens or hundreds of billions of dollars.

yeah man so fast. most real people that use them. dont have them. shows by game sales.

....RE8 UK physical sales shows 80% of sales is on PS platforms. PS5 is the leading platform with 49% and PS5 31%. UK is xbox 2nd biggest market.

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2021-05-10-resident-evil-village-is-the-third-biggest-ps5-launch-so-far-uk-boxed-charts

This gen is already turning into a bloodbath. The gamers have voted with their wallets and decided that PS5 is the go-to console.

So the Switch NPD win streak will continue through 2022. Got it

weakness awaits

For Series S owners it sure does.

HaH

You got one. 😂

It will be okay. PS5 is already "the fastest selling console of all-time." Remember? Everyone already owns the PS5 so they can slow down production.

That would turn into a PR nightmare for Sony and they'd surely be shooting themselves in the foot with that---actually, I take that back. Playstation shills are overjoyed when Sony makes their products more expensive.

I'll just play Kena on PS4 Pro.

This is kinda cool for me because I have no self control when it comes to buying consoles, I just buy everything. I've slowly lost interest because of this whole shortage thing and might not even get a console this generation because my interest keeps dropping. I might just go PC only from now on.

Thanks for the info! But I'm still confused- wouldn't Sony (or any company) have signed a contract with them that they would make x amount of units for them per week/month at whatever y price per unit. So the company you're talking about - TSMC is just shrugging saying "sorry we're trying our best." Would that mean Sony can go to a different company since TSMC isn't holding up their end of the bargain? Or how do we know some other company like Apple or Nintendo isn't throwing them more money so they get more during this time than Sony? Just seems like it could be all shady.

They can only buy what's available. TSMC needs to make sure everyone is getting something. And like I said in the post, they can't just go to another company. There are only like two other companies that are even options, and both of them can only provide inferior tech compared to TSMC (meaning the chips from them would be larger, hotter, and more power-hungry), on top of the fact that the process of porting the chip to a Samsung or GlobalFoundries node would requires a lot of time, work, and money, as well as AMD's cooperation in porting the architectures over. It's pretty much impossible to go somewhere else. It's not as simple as, "here's the chip, go make it." The fab is part of the chip's design, and moving it to another fab is effectively developing a new chip, and then parts of the console would need to be redesigned too so you won't have people complaining about lottery of good/bad consoles.

Also, again, everyone is affected by this. I don't know where you're getting the impression that Sony is being more affected by it than anyone else. Nintendo put out statements about production issues as well, and obviously XSS|X is still selling out. By nature of fabrication, Sony and Microsoft get less out of each wafer than Apple or Nintendo because they use larger chips (Nintendo gets 3x as many chips per wafer as Sony does), so they need a larger portion comparatively. Though, AMD's high-end GPUs are even bigger and that's part of the problem they're facing. And TSMC can only make so many wafers each month. Sony is already accounting for something like 10% of their capacity for the 7nm node with PS5, and there are thousands of other products using the same node. Though, Nintendo is using the 16nm node and Apple is using 5nm, so there isn't much direct competition there, but really everyone is struggling.

@NathanDrakeSwag: Yet every single XSX sells out in mins. 😆

The overrated junk can’t even support Ssd drives eight month after launch. 🤣

There aren't really any other companies doing this. The technology is mobilized on the entire planet by a global supply chain, and it is choked. There also isn't space for a competitor to come in and take advantage of the situation either. Ladies and gents, I present to you, the anarchy of a global production system divided into nation-states.

Expect shortages to hit everything for a long time with this poorly planned economy.

I've decided to just wait until the slim remodel releases. I highly doubt any Sony note-worthy games such as God of War or Horizon will release this year, anyway. I can wait.

@KBFloYd said:

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Maybe by then it'll actually have a web browser....lol.