World enews: PS5 stock shortages could be about to get a lot worse, report says

The shortages of PlayStation 5s could be about to get even worse, a new report warns.

Since it was release last year, the console has been somewhere between difficult and impossible to buy. That has been driven largely by a shortage of the chips that power the PlayStation 5, as well as increased interest in gaming.

The issues have meant that consoles sell out as soon as they are listed, and fans are forced to follow a variety of rumours and reports if they want to be in with any chance of buying the consoles at all. They also must compete for any drops with a host of automated systems, which buy up consoles when they are listed and sell them on at inflated prices.

That problem could be about to get worse as Sony is struggling even more to make the consoles, a new report claims.

The company had aimed to make 16 million PlayStation 5s between April 2021 and March 2022. That has now been revised down by a million, to 15 million, Bloomberg reported.

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Sony has said that it thinks it will sell 15 million PS5s in the same financial year. As such, the downgrade likely doesn’t make a major difference to its predicted results – but could mean that the problems getting hold of the console are likely to continue, perhaps into the coming years.

The company says that it expects to sell almost 23 million PS5s in the following financial year, beginning in April 2022. But the struggles with components and logistics might make it difficult to make that target, too, Bloomberg reported.

The problems are related not just to the widespread chip shortage, but other logistics problems, Bloomberg reported. It is struggling to get other components on time, and issues related to the coronavirus have led to problems at the factories where the PlayStation is actually made, the report claimed.

The issues with making the PlayStation 5 have proved troublesome to Sony, as well as to fans. The console had initially been outselling its predecessor, the PlayStation 4 – but has since lagged behind, simply because Sony is unable to make enough of the consoles to match demand.