PS5 stock shortages cause Sony to turn back to the PS4
Sony is reportedly extending production of PS4 consoles as PS5 machines continue to be elusive in international markets.
Are you still trying desperately to find a PS5 (without paying through the nose for a console from a scalper on an auction site)? Are you still refreshing retailer pages when PS5 stock drops, bashing your F5 key to a nubbin in a vain attempt to secure one of these precious machines? Well, you're not the only one. And the situation is so bad, Sony is reportedly going back to the PS4 to alleviate some of the demand.
A new report by Bloomberg claims that Sony apparently planned to cease making PS4 consoles in 2021, but has recently told its manufacturing partners that it will continue making the console for another year (resulting in another 1 million units avaialble to purchase by the end of 2022).
Sony is doing this to offset pressure on PS5 production, which the company clearly cannot keep up with. The new-generation's tech is more advanced and complicated than the PS4's, and as such it's harder to produce. By boosting PS4 production, Sony hopes to improve its deals with manufacturing partners which may, in turn, help PS5 production in the long run, per Bloomberg.
Despite stock issues, Sony is seeing massive success with the PS5. The Sony quarterly earnings report for Q2 2021 revealed that the PS5 has sold 13.4 million units since its release in November 2020.
In Q2 2021 alone, the PS5 sold a massive 3.3 million units, beating out the previous quarter and matching the number of sales made during the final quarter of 2020. So the newest PlayStation machine still has a lot of momentum to take advantage of (despite on-going stock issues).
Back in 2020, Sony noted that the PS4 to PS5 transition will take about three years. We can safely assume we're nudging that estimation forward a bit now, given production of the PS4 console will go on even longer than initially planned.
"After a certain period of time, we ask developers to develop on the premise of 'cross generation' of PS4 and PS5," Sony said at the time. "Of course, we also need to improve the library to make it easier."
We'll have to wait and see if this new development means we'll be seeing cross-gen games for even longer than initially planned.