The Playstation 5 console has turned one, but good luck finding any in time for Christmas. While valid reseller stock is sold almost immediately, many secondary sellers continue to buy the $399 and $499 versions, hoping to fetch up to $1,000 each for them.
Sony can’t keep their supply chain up to par with the demand for the consoles, sold at Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy, Game Stop and Target.
“I also want to thank everyone in the community for your patience. We continue to see historic demand for PS5 and we understand the inventory constraints remain a source of frustration for many of our customers,” CEO Jim Ryan said this week. “Rest assured that we are laser-focused on doing everything in our power to ship as many units as possible, it’s something we work on every day across the company and remains my top priority. Again, we appreciate your patience as we navigate through these unprecedented global challenges.”
Ryan looked back on the first year of the Playstation 5’s life and said the following five games have been the most popular on the platform:
- Fortnite
- Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War
- FIFA 21
- NBA 2K21
- Assassin’s Creed Valhalla
- Destiny 2
- MLB The Show 21
- Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales
- Demon’s Souls
- NBA 2K22
“A busy year indeed, and we are just getting started with PS5. The imaginative game creators and publishing partners we work with have launched more than 360 games on PS5. Additionally, there are currently more than 25 games in development for PS5 at PlayStation Studios,” Ryan said.
Despite the positive words about the future of the PS5, Ryan did not answer to why there are so few. Most retailers restock regularly but sell out in a matter of minutes.
Now, industry experts predict it will be even harder to buy a PS5 as the holidays near.
“Bloomberg is reporting that Sony will have to cut its forecast for the fiscal year ending in March where previously they said they would manufacture 16 million PS5s. According to Bloomberg’s sources, that’s now been cut by a full million, down to 15 million. Sony has yet to comment publicly,” Forbes reported this week.
The reason behind the PS5 shortage has been a global chip shortage.
“It’s no secret that Sony has been struggling to meet demand with supply by a wide margin, and as ever, it comes down to global chip shortages that have upended many industries, but video game console manufacturing in particular,” Forbes reported.