It's Going To Get Even Harder To Buy a PlayStation 5 (bloomberg.com) 42
Sony Group has reduced its PlayStation 5 production outlook for this fiscal year due to component and logistics constraints, Bloomberg reported Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. From the report: The Tokyo-based entertainment giant had previously targeted more than 16 million units assembled in the year ending March, setting it up to achieve its sales goal for the period and also get a head start on the subsequent year's production. The company has now cut that number down to about 15 million, making its aim of 14.8 million PS5 sales by March difficult, the people said, asking not to be named as the information is not public. Logistics issues and parts shortages have grown more severe for Sony, Chief Financial Officer Hiroki Totoki told investors on a conference call late last month. PS5 sales in the quarter ended September were slightly weaker than expectations, he said on Oct. 28, having previously warned that any resurgence in the spread of Covid-19 may impact the company's components supply. The PlayStation 5 became the fastest Sony console to reach 10 million units sold this July, but it has fallen behind the sales pace of its predecessor PlayStation 4 since then.
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If supply and demand are unbalanced, adjusting the price to bring them back into equilibrium is the logical thing to do.
It is the logical thing to do -- but the optics of profiteering off the pandemic will look bad.
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Re: They should double the price (Score:1)
Re: They should double the price (Score:2)
Instead you buy reasonably priced and readily available GPUs for your computer.
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Instead you buy reasonably priced and readily available GPUs for your computer.
Sarcasm-fu is great with this one....
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I'm not a conservative and I don't care which political party does it, but this is exactly how fiat currencies die. It happens over and over again as politicians can't stop printing money since it's easier than saying No. Social services or military spending you can't just massively increase the monetary supply and expect nothing to happen. The greater the debt the faster you have to increase the currency to dig your way out, the faster it collapses. I'm not a gold bug either but they have a point. As much
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Sony needs to do what US automakers do (Score:2)
Seems from a logisitics perspective, other than sourcing parts, putting up a playstation factory is easier than putting up a car factory. A lot of Japanese car companies have built factories in the US to basically assemble the parts. Sony should do the same.
Re:Sony needs to do what US automakers do (Score:4, Informative)
1) Er what? The US automakers (as well as all automakers) are in a worse state than Sony when it comes to chips and components right now. I am not sure how building an assembly factory in the US helps the situation when assembly is not the problem. Lack of worldwide parts is the problem.
2) Does Sony even assemble their own products? Many companies like Apple use 3rd parties like Foxconn. If Sony does not manufacture the PS5 themselves, what good is Sony building an assembly plant in the US do?
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Sorry I haven't had coffee yet, I meant to say Japanese automakers.
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Largely Unnecessary (Score:2)
This shortage doesn't need to be as bad as it is. Sony could just dictate that all resellers must create a sort of raincheck system where people can put their name on a list and then as units come in, the reseller goes down the list FIFO style. You'd more or less kneecap all the bots that come in and scoop up most of the inventory before actual people even get a chance, and you could let people check where they were in line after every stock refresh. One name, one unit. Want a second, get back in line after
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This shortage doesn't need to be as bad as it is. Sony could just dictate that all resellers must create a sort of raincheck system where people can put their name on a list and then as units come in, the reseller goes down the list FIFO style. You'd more or less kneecap all the bots that come in and scoop up most of the inventory before actual people even get a chance, and you could let people check where they were in line after every stock refresh. One name, one unit. Want a second, get back in line after the first and wait like everyone else.
How do those resellers ensure their product doesn't go to a scalper/bot in a FIFO order then? I imagine that often times the names aren't the same on all the credit cards/PayPal accounts for the bots...
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That's a legitimate point, but it would be a LOT more work for the scalpers. You have to come up with new names, addresses, credit card numbers, etc. And if you make people show up in person to get the units, that's another check against scalpers. Unless you get some employees in on the scam, they're going to notice if the same person keeps showing up day after day collecting PS5 units.
Scammers will always find a way to game the system, but there are some simple things retailers could do to make it more dif
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Yeah, I'm sure Sony could 'just dictate' to Amazon, Walmart, Target, etc how to run their businesses.
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They've done that for years, setting minimum prices, etc. That's why the price doesn't vary by more than $5 or so between retailers. They're not the only one who does that.
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There is a world of difference between a common practice like enforced MSRP and 'here is how you must interact with your customers'. Retailers can benefit from MSRP as it prevents a race-to-the-bottom price war. There is zero benefit, and potentially substantial cost, to the retailer with this idiotic proposal.
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And Sony can always say, "Do it or you won't get any more shipments."
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You seem to not have the slightest clue as to who has the power here. Here's a hint: it's not Sony. Walmart refusing Sony's demands would have MUCH more of a negative impact on Sony than Sony refusing to sell to Walmart would have on Walmart. PS4 sales are around 120M total. At an average price of $400 (which is high), that means total sales, over 5 years, of about $48B or less than $10B/year. Walmarts revenue, on the other hand, is about $560B/year. If every single PS4 was sold by Walmart, that would
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Sony losing Walmart as a retailer would be a MUCH bigger deal.
A bigger deal than the inverse? Sure. But is it really that big a deal overall?
I don't buy consoles (PC since Minecraft beta), and I avoid Walmart since it is disgusting, as are the customers (in my area, at least) compared to the Target across the street. So my opinion on this may be wild
Would not having Walmart really cut sales that much if there aren't even enough PS5's to go around? I do not think people are buying a PS5 on a whim, without plan, because they see it on a shelf. I think most sell because
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Walmart was just an example, it applies to all large retailers. And you may be correct in that it doesn't matter much right now, when supply is constrained. But eventually you are going to need your distributors, and pissing them off is not a great idea.
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Sony could just dictate that all resellers must create a sort of raincheck system where people can put their name on a list and then as units come in, the reseller goes down the list FIFO style.
Sony could also just sell the PS5s direct to customers using a similar system. There's no reason they have to go through retailers.
Instead, they have a lottery system [playstation.com], and you have to play a certain number of hours of PlayStation games a week as tracked by their online service in order to even qualify for a spot.
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The logistics of shipping individual units to individual customers is very different from just drop shipping pallets worth of units to a place like Best Buy or Target, but yeah, the lottery system is just plain stupid and is part of why I think that the business unit within Sony responsible for the PS5 is basically harming the brand for all the other business units just for a temporary boost in sales. It's like when Sony Music started installing rootkits on music CDs that would silently install themselves o
There is no killer app on PS5 (Score:2)
Had No Problems (Score:2)
Is it worth it? (Score:2)
Genuinely asking since a local webpage ran a story about the "unavailable, unwanted and unneeded" console generation, claiming that there are only minor advances in power and a lack of actual games that make use of any of the new features. Anyone who knows a bit about those consoles who can tell us whether that "artificial" shortage is just trying to create a hype over a console that isn't the big thing it's supposed to be?
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In a few years the true power of the new consoles will be apparent
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Minor advances? There's quite a big gap of power from the previous generation to this one. The fact that there're few games that make use of the new hardware's capabilities is, I think, because we're in a cross-gen phase: Games are very expensive to make and there's still a very high install base of the previous generation (much bigger than that of the current one) so it makes financial sense to makes most games cross-gen. In a few years the true power of the new consoles will be apparent
Add to that, the fact that Sony makes questionable revisions [nme.com] throughout the Playstation's history [fandom.com].
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Genuinely asking since a local webpage ran a story about the "unavailable, unwanted and unneeded" console generation, claiming that there are only minor advances in power and a lack of actual games that make use of any of the new features. Anyone who knows a bit about those consoles who can tell us whether that "artificial" shortage is just trying to create a hype over a console that isn't the big thing it's supposed to be?
The PS5 is a major advance in graphics and CPU power over the PS4. Anyone who says otherwise doesn't know what they are talking about.
That being said, like everything else, it depends on how you use it. If you occasionally game, have an older TV, and pick up games when they are on sale, the PS5 isn't going to make a major impact on your experience over a PS4. If you are a gamer, have a 4K TV, nice sound system, play new games as they come out, it's a huge upgrade.
One example, I play Fallout 76. It runs f
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The Ghost of Christmas Future (Score:2)
wait (Score:1)
Zero = 0 (Score:1)
In other news, 0=0...
This makes my decisions even easier (Score:2)
That's OK (Score:2)
That's OK. I'm not interested in playing Dark Souls, Dark Souls-like games, or soccer games.