Sony has revealed that it has lowered its PS5 shipment forecast for the rest of this fiscal year. Sony blamed the decrease on chip shortages that have impacted its ability to produce PS5 consoles. The revised estimate from Sony is quite dramatic. Originally, Sony had forecasted a total of 14.8 million PS5 consoles would be shipped this fiscal year. Instead, the company now says it expects to ship 11.5 million.
The chip shortage is only partly responsible for the lack of next-generation consoles available for customers. In January, Phil Spencer said a massive increase in demand for consoles was the reason for the shortage. He referenced the fact that Microsoft started selling out of consoles in early 2020. That’s unheard of for the time of year and particularly when new consoles were already scheduled to be released at the end of 2020.
While the pandemic is fueling demand for consoles like never before, it is also impacting both Sony and Microsoft’s ability to ramp up supply. Last month, one analyst predicted that Sony would sell 18 million PS5 consoles in 2022. That prediction is likely based on the high demand for the new console and taking into account supply constraints. However, with Sony downgrading its forecast for the rest of this fiscal year by over 3 million consoles, constraints could be worse than previously feared. For Sony to sell as many PS5 consoles as analysts expect, supply will have to get significantly better in the second half of 2022.
Sony also announced that to date it has shipped a total of 17.3 million PS5 consoles. That puts it behind where the PS4 was at this point in its life. By this point, the PS4 had sold 20.2 million units. Although the PS4 never had the shortages that the PS5 has been suffering from.
