PS5 is going to be even harder to get this Christmas as Sony cuts back production

PS5 Digital Edition — The PS5 is about to get even more difficult to find (pic: Sony)

There’s bad news for anyone trying to get a PS5 in time for Christmas as a shortage of components force production plans to be scaled back.

It’s still not easy to get hold of a PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X, but if you pay attention to stock checkers, and this site, a clear pattern has emerged over the last 12 months of when and how to pick one up.

Sony has been doing their best to increase stock deliveries in the run-up to Christmas, including chartering three jumbo jets to airlift consoles into the UK, but they’re limited by how many they can produce, thanks to component shortages and supply chain issues.

That’s exactly why Valve has just announced a delay for Steam Deck and now Sony has had to lower its official production forecast from 16 million consoles by the end of March, to just 15 million.

When every new console is still being fought over that’s a big drop, especially as it will likely mean that Sony misses its target of 14.8 million PlayStation 5 sales by March.

Rather than getting better over time, Sony has already warned that parts shortages are getting worse, and so in that sense the production decrease is not a big surprise.

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What Sony hasn’t said is when they expect any of this to end and while various companies, including Microsoft, have said that they hope to see major change by the middle of next year, Toshiba has warned that component shortages will continue well into 2023.

The only positive spin you can put on things at the moment is that it may take a while for the production decrease to take effect, so there shouldn’t be too much difference in availability for at least this month.