Even after a full year on the market, the PS5 is still hard to find, and now it looks like SONY's supply problems could get worse.
The Japanese tech giant recently lowered its production target for the fiscal year ending March 2022 to about 15 million units from 16 million, according to a new report by Bloomberg, citing sources familiar with SONY's operations.SONY had previously set a target of selling 14.8 million PS5s by March 2022, a goal that would seem harder to achieve if supply were further constrained.
The announcement follows a similar statement by SONY chief Financial Officer Totoki Hiroki, who told investors on a conference call last month that shortages and supply issues had started to get worse and that any future restrictions caused by COVID-19 could have an additional impact on PS5 production.
Despite the COVID-19 pandemic wreaking havoc on chip production and global supply chains, the PS5 became SONY's fastest-selling console ever, selling more than 10 million units in July. This suggests that SONY's supply problems may be attributed to excessive demand rather than limited production, and may be due in large part to more people being restricted to finding new forms of entertainment at home — to the extent that might not have happened in a "normal" year.
Thankfully, while the global chip crisis is expected to continue into 2022, there does seem to be some new hope for gamers looking to buy SONY's latest console. During the PS5's first year on the market, most major retailers restricted online sales of the PS5, with many stopping sales on their websites whenever a new console was released.
But more recently, retailers like Best Buy and Gamestop have started selling consoles to local retail stores, giving people (especially those who don't want to spend time refreshing their Web browsers) another way to Buy a new PS5(or Xbox Series S/X).
Behind the scenes, SONY also appears to be making some hardware changes to the PS5 that are designed to help the console run cooler, while possibly avoiding the need for some parts that are already in short supply.
Unfortunately, even as the PS5 enters its second holiday shopping season, finding a new PS5 that's actually in-stock can still be a frustrating endeavor and will likely continue to be so through 2022.
