Remember the old days when you could go into a shop and buy a PlayStation and Xbox? They’re not coming back anytime soon.
Go to your online retailer of choice and try to buy either a Sony PlayStation 5 or a Microsoft Xbox Series X, and there’s a very strong chance you’re going to come up short. Actually try to walk into a physical store and buy one? Pah. Forget it.
Even though we’re 18 months after the release of both machines, stock shortages are blighting both of them. It’s worked in their favour to a degree, with demand far outstripping supply and thus interest in the machines remains sky high.
Thing is, suspicions that this may all have been a deliberate conspiracy theory thing, where stocks were intentionally kept low, seem to have dampened. There’s a general acceptance now that there’s a global shortage of semiconductors, and that’s impacting everything from games consoles to cars.
The hope had been that by this Christmas, shortages of chips would be alleviated, and then fully at an end in 2023. That hope looks proven to be just that.
The latest chipper (arf) warning of shortages has come from the CEO of Intel, Pat Gelsinger. He’d previously suggested – and it’d be fair to say he has some skin in the game here – that the shortages would come to an end next year at some point. Now he’s revised those opinions, and suggested that it’ll be 2024 before things are fully back up and running.
The knock on of that is pretty much what you’d expect. Any technology item that relies on a semiconductor – and it’s easier to list the ones that don’t – will be fighting for supplies for at least the next 18 months, likely longer. In turn, that means supplies of products will remain suppressed, and there’s still little chance of buying a high-end games console in a shop in December. On the flipside, Microsoft’s decision to launch a lower-powered Xbox – the excellent Series S – now looks positively inspired. That’s readily available and has been for some time.
Elsewhere? At this rate, there’ll be a PlayStation 6 before you can order a PlayStation 5…
