Despite everything going on and the rather dire state of the world at large, both Sony and Microsoft did something pretty incredible and still managed to launch new generation consoles to the market. On one level, it’s somewhat exciting, especially in a turd of a year when you kind of just want to look forward to anything remotely positive. However, due to everything, it also lead to some frustration as stock for both were very constrained to say the least. And if you’re hoping for another batch before Christmas, I wouldn’t get hopes up.
The PS5’s launch was said to have been Sony’s biggest ever, and the PlayStation CEO said everything was sold. Doesn’t seem like that’s much of an exaggeration as major UK retailers have signaled they don’t expect to get any PS5s until at least next year. Argos posted a note telling customers they expect no more systems for the rest of the year, Asda said on Twitter they expect none until well after Christmas, and DualShockers reached out the GAME who said they also aren’t expecting any for the remainder of the year either. While this is specifically for the UK, it’s probably true to some degree in most places. While there may be a few trickles here and there, it’s probably best not to expect much stock anywhere before Christmas.
The PS5, Xbox Series X and Series S all had a lot of pre-order woes, so much so that Phil Spencer has said it’s pushed them to explore other order models for the future. It seems stock for all the new systems will be pretty limited until at least 2021 at this point.