MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
The limited supply of PlayStation 5 units is expected to continue until next year, Sony has warned analysts.
That’s according to a report from Bloomberg, who reveal that Sony is still struggling to meet the enormous demand for their new console.
“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 is reported to have said at the briefing.
The 2020 launch of the PlayStation 5 has been an enormous success for Sony, who recently celebrated PlayStation’s ‘best year ever’ with 7.8m units shipped. Sony is also aiming to sell at least 14.8m units in the current fiscal year, which would match the sales trajectory of its predecessor, the PS4, which has shipped 115.9m units to date.
Despite the console’s undeniable success, some analysts expressed concerns that Sony was failing to fully capitalise on the COVID-19 gaming bubble. Totoki answered these concerns by saying:
“We have sold more than 100 million units of the PlayStation 4 and considering our market share and reputation, I can’t imagine demand dropping easily.”
However, there are signs that the COVID gaming boost is coming to an end. Sony reported that monthly active users on Playstation Network had fallen to 109m at the end of the January-March period, from 114m in the previous quarter. Additionally, sales of full games also fell during this quarter.
