The current console generation may have kicked off in late 2020, but component shortages and high demand have made both the Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 difficult to come by even months after launch.
Unfortunately, executives at Sony aren’t expecting the ongoing supply issues to end any time soon. According to executive comments passed along by Sony investors to Bloomberg, Sony doesn’t expect to get ahead of demand until next year at least.
“I don’t think demand is calming down this year,” Sony CFO Hiroki Totoki told analysts following Sony’s financial reporting last week. “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.”
Despite production difficulties caused by those component shortages, Sony has so far sold 7.8 million PlayStation 5 consoles since November 2020. Totoki goes on to add that Sony sold over 100 million PlayStation 4 consoles during the console’s reign, and as such he “can’t imagine demand dropping easily” any time soon.
It’s a similar story over on the other side of the console business as well, though Xbox-maker Microsoft hasn’t pushed the eventual supply solution so far out quite yet, at least publicly. As of Microsoft’s most recent financial report, Microsoft CFO Amy Hood told investors that “significant demand for the Xbox Series X and S will continue to be constrained by supply” until after the quarter ending June 20, 2021 at the earliest.