Sony Has Declared That The Great PS5 Shortage Is Over At CES

Sony had a surprisingly interesting showing at CES this year, one that produced some PSVR2 information, along with the debut of a new accessibility control system. The company also took the time to announce a major milestone, that PS5 had hit 30 million consoles sold since its release in 2020.

Not only that, but Sony’s Jim Ryan is going a step further, and is now willing to declare that the expansive PS5 shortage of the first few years of release should effectively be over from this point forward:

“Everyone who wants a PS5 should have a much easier time finding one at retailers globally, starting from this point forward,” he said.

Ryan thanked fans for bearing with Sony while it “managed unprecedented demand amid global challenges over the past two years.” That would be the chip and component shortage which made PS5 exceptionally hard to find, and eons after release, it was still selling out instantly when it popped up online. Now the idea is that you may even just be able to go…to a local store and buy one off the shelf, which has been unthinkable thus far.

PS5 sales have been lagging behind PS4 sales since release because of this mass shortage, but it seems fairly clear it would have blown those sales away if supply had been able to meet demand for the last two years. Now, that may be closer to actually happening, and we’re already seeing an acceleration. PS5 went from 20 to 30 million sales faster than the PS4 did.

Last year was an especially big year for PS5 with the release of both Horizon Forbidden West and God of War Ragnarok. And it was the preferred home of third party offerings like GOTY Elden Ring and Modern Warfare 2. It’s unknown exactly by how much Sony’s PS5 is outselling the Xbox Series X and S, as Microsoft no longer reports those figures, but Microsoft’s own data, presented to prove to the FTC that Sony is a bigger player in the market than them, indicate it could be close to 2:1 again in Sony’s favor, just like last generation.

Xbox is also poised for a potentially big year if the Activision Blizzard deal does in fact go through, but they also have the release of Bethesda’s Starfield coming in the first half of the year. Sony, however, will have Final Fantasy XVI and Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, where Spider-Man 1 was the best-selling exclusive for the PS4. So they’re not slowing down at all either.

As for the long arc of PS5 sales, PlayStation consoles make up 4 of the top ten, including #1:

1. PS2 – 155 million sold
2. Nintendo DS – 154 million sold
3. Game Boy – 118.69 million sold
4. PS4 – 117.2 million sold
5. Nintendo Switch – 114.33 million sold
6. PS1 – 102.49 million sold
7. Wii – 101.63 million sold
8. PS3 – 87.4 million sold
9. Xbox 360 – 84 million sold
10. Game Boy Advance – 81.51 million sold.

PS5, despite early shortages, in no way looks like an “off” generation for PlayStation like the PS3 was, and it stands to reason it will likely outsell the PS4 given enough years of production. Could anything ever touch PS2? It’s not impossible, given recent trends. We’ll have to see.

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