Sony Says the PlayStation 5 Shortage Is Over (theverge.com) 54
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: The PlayStation 5 shortage is finally over — at least according to Sony. "Everyone who wants a PS5 should have a much easier time finding one at retailers globally, starting from this point forward," said Jim Ryan, the company's gaming boss, during its CES presentation. The company also announced that it's sold around 30 million consoles at this point. That's around 5 million more than the last time it released sales numbers in November.
It's been a long time getting to this point; the PlayStation 5 launched in November 2020, and it wasn't until August 2022 that we declared it "almost easy to buy." For most of the console's life, getting one required you to be either very lucky, relatively on-the-spot with drops, or willing to pay scalpers or Best Buy significantly more than the console's MSRP. Even recently, the main way to get it was via a $550 bundle, which included the PS5 with disk drive, and a game -- that's fine if you were already going to buy Horizon Forbidden West or God of War Ragnarok, but a pretty steep markup if you were hoping for the $399.99 digital console. During the presentation, Ryan thanked PlayStation fans for their patience as the company "managed unprecedented demand amid global challenges over the past two years."
It's been a long time getting to this point; the PlayStation 5 launched in November 2020, and it wasn't until August 2022 that we declared it "almost easy to buy." For most of the console's life, getting one required you to be either very lucky, relatively on-the-spot with drops, or willing to pay scalpers or Best Buy significantly more than the console's MSRP. Even recently, the main way to get it was via a $550 bundle, which included the PS5 with disk drive, and a game -- that's fine if you were already going to buy Horizon Forbidden West or God of War Ragnarok, but a pretty steep markup if you were hoping for the $399.99 digital console. During the presentation, Ryan thanked PlayStation fans for their patience as the company "managed unprecedented demand amid global challenges over the past two years."
No point picking one up (Score:1)
Re:No point picking one up (Score:5, Interesting)
One thing the PS5 shortage has taught me is that I don't need a PS5. Sony sent me a time to log in a few months back and purchase one directly, but I deemed the purchase unneccessary. I have a back log of PS4 games, which are now mostly out on PC with better graphics. By the time I get through those (currently playing Witcher 3), the sequels will hopefully be on PC. If not, I'll pick up the slim, hopefully at a reduced price.
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Considering RDNA3 RT performance, I wouldn't hold my breath. That's one thing they still don't do well.
They're great at rasterized performance though.
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... and should be prices as such too. The 1080TI was $800 and very very expensive. 1080 was $499. Now a xx80 costs $1400 and the TI aka xx90 is close to $2000 for an oem card.
Our salaries have not doubled in 5 years but everything else has.
I never thought I would ever type this but a console looks like a much better deal these days and with the distance of the couch from the TV the upscaling is not noticeable as a PS5 looks better than with DLSS up close for only $499.
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Almost nothing is going to ray tracing. Most modern games are fully rasterized. Biggest "RT" releases in recent times are just patches/re-releases for existing games to add some RT features, like Metro Exodus and Witcher 3.
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Have you looked at your own link? Total of 21 games during entirety of last year. And that was very much scraping the bottom of the barrel. It included such amazing blockbusters with top tier graphics like https://store.steampowered.com... [steampowered.com]
Big releases that actually had decent feature set of RT were the two games I mentioned above. Because they actually did more than a "small handful of shadows will be RT, everything else is still rasterized" and they were actually popular games.
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RT on consoles this gen is a bit of a joke, because of just how poor RT performance is on RDNA2.
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God [pcgamingwiki.com] you are sooooo dumb.
151 games listed there. 10,394 released on steam [statista.com] in 2021 alone. Even if we assume that only 1/10th of video games could actually benefit from ray tracing, less than 5% of those that may benefit that were released in 2021. The tech is fascinating, and whenever it gets to the point where it's common place, it'll be impressive, but don't come here and try to tell a bunch of nerds that 151 video games is anywhere near a significant figure...
If we're going ad hominem, you would be the one who is being dumb.
Al
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Almost nothing is going to ray tracing.
I provided a list that shows otherwise.
And of the 10k releases that you mentioned - 200 were from actual game studios, the rest are indie trash that wouldn't use RT anyway. 151 out of 200.
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Almost nothing is going to ray tracing.
I provided a list that shows otherwise. And of the 10k releases that you mentioned - 200 were from actual game studios, the rest are indie trash that wouldn't use RT anyway. 151 out of 200.
I get it, math is hard.
There's 151 games listed going all the way back to Doom. The roughly 25 listed from that year still makes up less than 15%, using your seemingly made up number of games "from actual games studios."
Also, cite your source for 200 coming from "actual game studios" (preferably with the definition of "actual game studios"), cause you sound like you're purely making shit up to try to prove your point.
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The 7900 xtx still kicks the 4070ti ass in with raytracing and ties rasterization with the 4080.
But the real elephant in the room is the price of components these days? This is like a timewarp 20 years ago to 2003. The console is a much better value again due to greed. Motherboards that used to cost $70 are now starting at $300 and this does not count CPU or GPU pricing which are orders of multitude more expensive because of RGB lighting according to marketing folks
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No, the new mobos are so expensive because of the DDR 5 shift and also PCIE 5.0 on the higher end.
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Top tier model is sorta kinda bit better sometimes and worse sometimes against same gen massively cut down model.
This isn't a W you're looking for. Especially in the world of consoles where SOCs rule the day, meaning your GPU part of the die will be done on a tiny power and size budget, and isn't going to be a full sized full power die.
PlayStation 5 Shortage Is Over!!! (Score:2)
Playstation 6 shortage begins in 5.. 4.. 3...
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The hardware was always a loss-leader to generate game sales/subscriptions. Going longer between hardware versions is extra money in their pockets.
Crazy times getting ps5 near launch (Score:2)
I got 2 around Christmas after launch (1 for a friend). It was crazy hard but game bundle was not required. Just got base unit and 1 controller.
Crazy hard like having alert sites for drops sending me texts at 4am or whenever they got info and hitting refresh in browser hundreds of times with credit card and PII pre-saved in retailer sites, etc.
It was fucking nuts but I had free time and took it up as a challenge. Worth it? Matter of opinion. Ps5 is way better than my ps4 and I've played the hell out of
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Mine were just before and after Xmas. The one I got for my buddy I joked about charging him but just took the cost+tax and poked some fun about how he doesn't know how to use a browser. He's very technical but the sites would always crash on him when he tried to buy from his cart. :-)
I stopped playing for a 4-5 months mid this year because I had life stuff to do but now back at it. I got the premium sub but decided the middle tier is all I need and I'll downgrade to that when this one runs out.
good?! (Score:2)
maybe that means AMD can start producing their video cards and stop feeding the scalpers based on limited roduction
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Consoles are based on SOCs. They don't have discrete graphics chips of the kind that go into video cards.
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i understand, just hoping this means the production capacities are back up for video cards by the soc manufacturer.
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My understanding is that those are completely separate capacities.
That said, GPU market is quite saturated with offerings that aren't selling right now. And has been for several months. The problem is at least that pricing is still high. Another likely problem is that a lot of people changed hobbies after GPUs became unobtainium during Ethereum GPU mining era.
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Sony immune to chip shortage? (Score:4, Interesting)
What does Sony know that the rest of the tech world doesn't know?
This past October, less than 3 months ago, Sony announced thusly:
" ...the PS5 shortage might end in 2024 if everything goes according to plan. "
And what has changed in the last 90 days?
Nothing.
The pandemic is still in full swing in many parts of the world.
The chip shortage is ongoing, no better, no worse.
A quick look around at retailer websites shows zero stock of the PS5.
The reality is this was a completely bogus announcement during their CES presentation.
The fact that they sandwiched it between playful announcements of other ingenious upcoming pie-in-the-sky product launches tells me Sony knew it was bogus and announced it anyway, to appease shareholders and give tech bloggers more Sony and PS5 fodder.
Meanwhile, Microsoft's Xbox Series X 1TB Console is flying off the shelves and seems to have a bottomless supply.
Victory loves preparation.
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My guess is that there is a lack of demand for the Xbox, seeing that is sucks in comparison to the PS5 in every single way. PS5 sold 30+million units where Xbox is around 19million. I was an Xbox guy from the very first Xbox but really, MS dropped the ball big time in the last few years, and sales are showing that.
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I was originally looking for an Xbox but found a PS5 first. Stock availablility rotates for both consoles. Even mid-December all the stores here were saying no consoles (both Xbox Series X and PS5.)
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Lol
The xbox is much faster in terms of CPU and graphics and also has pause and on demand play and xbox game pass over the Playstation
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Have you even used the PS5 controller? That alone tells me everything I need to know about the two systems. But if that isn't enough: Press the 'Record that' button on a PS5 is INSTANT... Xbox you might miss your 15 second window before the damn screen comes up. PS5 is snappy enough too. I don't need an instant start when PS5 starts things under 10 seconds. Still not enough? God of War, Horizon Zero Dawn, Last of Us, Uncharted... Still not enough? No ads in the main menu. Still not enough? You can pla
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I have which is why I won't buy a PS5.
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Not gonna argue the other points, but 'play Blue Ray movies' was something an Xbox One was capable of.
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Lol
The xbox is much faster in terms of CPU and graphics and also has pause and on demand play and xbox game pass over the Playstation
That's what your gaming PC is for, so why have that and an xbox? PlayStation and a PC gives exposure to more games and both PC & console experiences.
The console experience is better than the PC in many ways, why go with the company that is responsible for the PC experience sucking with no interest in improving it because they make a console too, and the pitch is - the same games?
Sony isn't responsible for Windows sucking at everything from waking from sleep or HDMI-CEC support. I can imagine the PC is
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You do know there is a difference between a PC and an xbox right?
Also have you seen the prices for GPU's in the past 2 years?
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And what has changed in the last 90 days? Nothing.
Knowledge changed in the last 90 days. The reality is 90 days ago we were starting to see a chip glut as global orders were starting to be cancelled for the holiday season on account of the horrendously poor sales of tech items. The pandemic may be ongoing in that there's a virus out there, but the pandemic is over in that people have gone back to their normal lives, living out and about, not at home all day with nothing to spend their money on other than shit from Amazon.
A quick look around at retailer websites shows zero stock of the PS5.
I decided to look as well. Mediamar
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Oh and it seems that same shop has all Xbox series X bundles as well as single units listed as "no delivery possible" which means they don't even know when they will get stock and aren't even taking backorders.
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A quick look around at retailer websites shows zero stock of the PS5.
The reality is this was a completely bogus announcement during their CES presentation.
I don't think inventory works the way you think inventory works.
Amazon (Score:2)
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Plus the only PS5s available from Sony themselves are the bundles mentioned in the summary, and that neglects to mention that Sony essentially requires you to buy an accessory if you want to buy it from them. (They "don't," you just have to pay "shipping and handling" if you don't. How much is shipping and handling? No idea, that would require attempting to buy one.)
I've still never seen the PS5 sold in a real, physical store, and none of the places I've checked online have one that isn't a crazy bundle, us
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In other news ... (Score:2)
PC not exactly an alternative to PS5 for some (Score:2)
A high end PC that can play games at 4K / 60 fps or higher is beyond the reach of most people - both in terms of price ((1K+ vs 400) and ease of first setup (5 min setup vs 4 hours).
Its interesting that one of the fastest growing customer segments is older gamers. From direct first hand experience, the ton of usability and accessibility features being added to games like God of War Ragnarok (GoW-R) & Horizon Forbidden West actually allowed a few of the 60* folks in my house hold to play the games durin
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Well other than my comment below. I will Add.
4K/30 is fine by me on console. I dislike pvp (multiplayer) content as asshats tend to ruin it. I will choose 4k over a higher frame rate any day. My PC does 4k/60 there abouts (which is what it ever is on some sort of games (some areas be bust in multiplayer and it is what it is)).
I do not but the "media centre" thing. Plugin a usb intyo my tv does that except when it's an odd codec and then the PS will be just as bad.
Anyway good for you and your things. Seems
AKA (Score:2)
Sony says not enough people are buying PS5's anymore so supply is up?
Who knows there are many ways to look at this.
I have had many emaisl from sopny sying you can buy a ps5 now for the past years at least, so maybe it is more a please buy out ps5's thing. I prefer xbox right now (well as a console PC obviously for the main), I have yet to have a must have on PS5 and only have a series S well becuase I could get it at the time! And would have got an X but hey S+1gb expansion is probably better for me (and a
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5 million consoles sold in 2 months is hardly indicative of a sales slowdown.
RIP (Score:2)
Does this mean I won't be seeing "I FINALLY GOT A PS5" photo posts on r/gaming getting ridiculous upvotes for zero reason? Sadge. Karma Farming is dead.