Sony Says Supply Shortages Affecting PS5 Sales, Remains Optimistic it Will Hit Targets - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 01 November 2021 / 1,914 Views
Sony Interactive Entertainment this week announced it shipped 3.3 million PlayStation 5 consoles for the three month period ending September 30, 2021 to bring lifetime PS5 shipments to 13.4 million units.
Sony executive deputy president and chief financial officer Hiroki Totoki in an earnings call with investors attended by VideoGamesChronicle has said supply shortages are affecting PS5 sales. However, he is optimistic the company can hit its targets.
"At this time, there is no change to our FY21 unit sales target for PS5 hardware, but several factors are significantly impacting the supply of the product such as disruption of the global distribution supply chain and limitations on the supply of components, especially semiconductors," said Totoki.
"In the second year of PS4, it was 14.8 million units [shipped] and we were targeting to exceed this number and we have not changed this target."
Totoki did admit PS5 sales in the first half of the year did not meet Sony's expectations.
"Worldwide, there is a disruption in logistics, and mainly semiconductor device supply being constrained, and this is having a larger impact [than expected], and as you know, the hardware sales in the first quarter were less unit wise and so this is having an impact on us, and likewise for the second quarter," said Totoki.
"But I think that with our efforts and putting in place different measures, the PS platform momentum can be maintained, and especially to the users who are waiting for the PS5, we want to be able to supply as many PS5s as possible to our customers who are waiting – that is our thinking."
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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There is also some value in showing the system supply constrained for so long and still being close to PS4 in shipment.
What a shame that the shortages affected the ps5 sales, it wouldve been quite the monster sale!
Sorry buddy, you are way too optimistic. Shortages will continue up until sometime in 2023, this includes everyone from Nvidia/Apple etc. Wanted to upgrade to the M1 Max, nope, wait several months.
You mean you are more knowledgeable about Sony's internal workings than its own CFO and your reasoning is an Apple M1 Max which uses totally different chips than a PS5?
No, it's called listening to various bosses of various companies. If you want to take this one opinion as gospel, that's your problem.
You're presuming that knowledge is the bottle neck. How honest/forthright the company is being is also an issue. And on top of that, supply is objective but predicting demand is subjective. And a shortage is a measure of the demand/supply ratio. I think it's absolutely possible for individuals to predict shortages better than the supplier. And I'll give you an example. I own a small bicycle shop, and I've done a better job of predicting shortages in the bicycle industry better than not only other local bike shops, but better than my suppliers and the manufacturers themselves. I was loading up on things that went on to suffer shortages starting in April 2020. The messaging from my suppliers and their manufacturing partners was more bullish than my estimates. So either my estimates were better than the manufacturers themselves, or they weren't being honest/forthright with us, or a combo of the two.
Honestly, Matt might not know more than a Sony executive, but they're also paid to kind of lie as much as they're allowed by law. Whatever the situation is, they have to put a positive spin on it.
I've heard things won't be straightened out until late next year.
And late next year will be going into the holiday rush, so sometime in 2023 after the holiday sales period is over is actually far more likely IMO. There's just so much pent-up demand out there. Keep in mind there are Sony fans who bought an Xbox because one happened to come available and they couldn't get a PS5, and there are Xbox fans who bought a Series S while they wait for a Series X to be available, so there is the pent-up demand of people with last-gen consoles still trying to get a current-gen system, plus there's the additional pent up demand of people who have a current-gen console but not the one they'd prefer. I don't see all of that sorting itself out by the end of 2022.
To me it's not a question that all the pent-up demand will carry us into 2023. It's only a question of whether it'll be early, middle, or late in 2023 that supply truly catches up to demand, and you can walk into most stores and get your choice of the four consoles (your preferred PS5 variant, or your preferred Xbox Series console).
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