Sony is unable to make any more PS5s for now, so they are re-manufacturing more PS4s to offer at least one alternative.

If you are trying to get a PS5, good luck. The chip shortage is taking much of the blame for the tight supply, and at Sony they have so much trouble meeting the demand that they have appealed to an amazing plan.

What they have done is revive PS4 manufacturing, which was expected to be discontinued in 2021. The situation has caused plans to change, and Sony will increase production by one million PS4s to try to offer an alternative to users. That also has other advantages.

Making and distributing the PS5 is proving to be a bit of a problem

Above all, they indicate in Bloomberg, because the “old console” is cheaper and easier to manufacture and uses less complex chips. Also by increasing your production requests allows Sony to have more bargaining power and achieve better prices in those processes.

A Sony spokesperson confirmed that PS4 production will continue throughout 2022. Although anonymous internal sources had indicated that Sony had planned to abandon its manufacture at the end of 2021, the situation with the PS5 seems to have caused the change of plans, although that spokesman indicated that there were no plans to stop production.

The PS4 launched in 2013 and has already sold more than 116 million units, a milestone that will be very difficult to be equaled by the new generation. It remains a very popular alternative among gamers despite the appearance of the new model, and Sony wants to take advantage of all that legacy to keep gamers within their ecosystem.

Chip shortage issues are significant for audio, power management and wireless communications, analysts say. The thing does not end there: distributing the consoles that are produced also ends up being a problem because logistics costs have also grown. At Microsoft these days they indicated that they have similar problems, but their approach was somewhat different.

Via | Bloomberg