Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft have all announced Switch, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S shortages expected for Christmas 2021.
Reuters and VGC report that in a press briefing following the announcement of Nintendo’s second quarter results, Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa revealed the bad news on shortages.
“We can’t produce enough to meet the demand we are expecting during the upcoming holiday season,” Furukawa explained. “Currently there is no sign of improvement and the situation continues to be severe so I can’t say how long it will continue.” The news came amid second quarter falling 32% in the same period last year; though this figure is still $880 million USD.
Meanwhile, Sony Interactive Entertainment announced PlayStation 5 shortages in a financial results briefing. “At this time, there is no change to our FY21 unit sales target for PS5 hardware,” explained Sony executive deputy president and chief financial officer Hiroki Totoki.
“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.” Sony have even taken to chartering three jumbo jets to air-freight PlayStation 5 consoles to meet UK demands.
While Sony are aiming for the console to sell over 14.8 million units by March 2022 (surpassing the PlayStation 4 a the same stage it was on the market), that would mean they would need to sell 9.2 million in four months. They have sold 7.8 million in the prior six months.
Finally Xbox head Phil Spencer told The Wrap (via VGC) that Xbox Series X|S shortages would continue into 2022. However, Spencer did not exclusively blame the chip shortages.
“I think it’s probably too isolated to talk about it as just a chip problem. When I think about, what does it mean to get the parts necessary to build a console today, and then get it to the markets where the demand is, there are multiple kind of pinch points in that process.”
Gaming as a whole arguably saw a boost thanks to the COVID-19 lockdowns, but in turn hindering production globally. As such, increased demand could not be met, and has still been felt to this day.
