The PS5 has been on the market since the end of 2020, but even after more than a year it is still a gamble to get a console. The reason for this is not only the lack of chips.
- The PS5 is hard to come by even after over a year.
- Not only were significantly fewer consoles shipped than the previous generation.
- There are also significantly more interested parties than before on a console.
Let’s first take a look at the current sales figures for the PlayStation 5. It was launched in November 2020, as of March 2022, more than 18 million PlayStation 5s have been sold worldwide. In fact, that’s three million fewer consoles than the PlayStation 4 managed in the same period after its release.
But it doesn’t seem to be just the lack of chips or corona-related production breaks. Three million consoles would be manageable, especially since they are missing worldwide. The number of potential PS5 buyers seems to be more decisive: home office or home schooling are increasing demand, as are the travel restrictions of recent years. Added to this is the success of the PS4, quite a few will certainly want to switch to the successor model.
Success of PS4 exacerbates the situation
We’ll take a closer look at the latter in a moment and compare PS3 to PS4 upgraders to those who potentially want to upgrade from PS4 to PS5. This is interesting because Sony is the leader in the console market and has such a loyal following of fans. Fourth-generation PlayStations are still in more than 116 million living rooms today.
By the way: By far the most successful console for the living room at home was the much older Sony Playstation 2. More than 157 million copies were sold worldwide from the turn of the millennium. For comparison: All Xbox generations together were sold about as often – mind you, all generations.
Now a look at the upgraders: When the PlayStation 4 came out, there were about 70 million PlayStation 3s in use. Within two years, the PlayStation 4 has reached half of it, five years after its release, the PS4 has overtaken the PS3. If the rate were exactly the same when switching from PS4 to PS5, it would look like this:
From this calculation alone 10 million PlayStation 5 are missing by early April 2022. In other words, Sony could easily have doubled production and most likely got rid of the consoles. Especially since we are only looking at the potential switchers from PS4 to PS5, the additional demand due to the pandemic is not included.
All the above numbers apply worldwide. There are no exact figures for Germany, but for Europe: by April 2022, not even 400,000 PS5s were sold here. So if you’re wondering why there wasn’t a PS5 under the Christmas tree in either 2020 or 2021, you now know that for every available console there are dozens more customers waiting. If you look at the mini drops with a few hundred consoles, you should be prepared for longer waiting times in 2022 as well.
And the situation will remain tense, as Sony’s chief financial officer Hiroki Totoki recently confirmed. Due to the global chip shortage, it will be difficult to get hold of a PlayStation 5 at least until the summer of 2022.
How can you increase your chances?
The initial situation is really not the best: many customers, few consoles. The drops in this country have a low volume, often no more than 1,000 consoles. The times larger quantities around 10,000 consoles or more are available is the exception. Above all, you have to be quick and prepared.
The PlayStation 5 was in the shopping cart and you were left behind by other customers during the checkout process? It is better if you have already set up accounts beforehand and can thus do without tedious entering of address and payment information. Do this for the shops that drop regularly:
Keep an eye on this PS5 overview page! We are constantly monitoring the market and will inform you immediately as soon as there are signs of a PS5 sale.
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