The PlayStation 5 has already beaten all previous sales records, but it could have sold much more without the chip crisis: how will things go from now to March 2022
There are gamers who have been trying to buy a PS5 at a "normal" price for exactly one year: Sony's next gen console, in fact, was launched on the market on November 12, 2020 but, right from the start, it was very difficult to buy it. Very few specimens available, too many vultures who have done hoard and then resell them at crazy prices on eBay, Amazon and other online shops.
Today, after 12 months, the situation is not much improved. In fact, it's getting worse: according to Bloomberg, in fact, Sony itself has cut estimates on the pieces produced and sold by the end of March 2022. Bloomberg received this information from a source who asked to remain covered, given the repercussions of news like this on Sony stock on the major world stock exchanges. Let's be clear: PlayStation 5s are selling like hotcakes, but it's bread that's in short supply due to the chip crisis. The latest official numbers, updated at the beginning of October 2021, tell us in fact that Sony has managed to produce and sell 11.95 million units.
How many PS5s are missing
Almost 12 million units in less than 12 months is a great number, but it is not the number that Sony expected to be able to produce and, consequently, to sell. As a result, Bloomberg reports, estimates of sales through the end of March 2022 have been reduced from the previous 16 million units to the current 14.8 million.
Some 1.2 million PlayStation 5s are missing, and as many would-be buyers will have to wait before they can get their hands on this invaluable console.
Why Sony can't produce the PS5
The PS5 is a jewel of technology, with extremely complex and high-performance hardware inside. Inside a Sony PlayStation 5 there is practically the best of the components available today (not): a Zen 2 processor created ad hoc by AMD for the console, 16 GB of RAM, an SSD disk (i.e. made of memory chips) of 825 GB.
All components that have been very difficult to find on the market for months, due to the lockdowns experienced in the Far East last year, the current restrictions due to the aftermath of the Covid, the repercussions of all this on logistics.
Not only Sony, on the other hand, has problems of this kind: Nintendo, for example, a few days ago had to make official the cut in the production of its Switch console: 1.5 million units less between now and the end of March 2022. The launch of the Steam Deck portable console produced by Valve, however, has simply been postponed by two months.