The industry magazine DigiTimes claims from suppliers that Sony has now sold 3.4 million PlayStation 5 consoles. Since 12. November 2020 the new consoles will be sold in two versions in the USA and Japan. At the 19. November saw the start of sales in Europe.

From the beginning, the PlayStation 5, just like the Xbox Series X and Series S, was hardly available – especially not at the recommended retail price of 499 euros for the standard version and 399 euros for the digital edition. Resellers sometimes charge more than twice the price. Small numbers of items are occasionally put on the market, but they are still a long way from meeting demand. For the first quarter 2021 too, Sony expects continued high demand. Since the console will then also be available in other Asian countries, the quantities produced will be distributed across other regions and countries.

Sony has not yet given any official sales figures. As part of the announcement of the latest business figures, a target of 5 to 6 million consoles produced by the end of March 2021 was set. However, this does not mean that these quantities will have been sold by then. With 3.4 million consoles already assumed, 5 to 6 million by the end of March are quite realistic. In the meantime there was probably talk of 10 million devices.

DigiTimes also wants its own figures for this from supplier circles . Sony is to work with AMD and TSMC on a possible increase in production capacities. However, this should not be that easy, as TSMC already has fully utilized production lines and the corresponding capacities must be booked well in advance. A spontaneous increase in capacity is therefore not that easy. In addition, although the chips are manufactured at TSMC, the console as such must also be manufactured or screwed together. Here, too, it shouldn’t be that easy to increase capacities that easily. By the end of 2021 16, 8 to 18 million PlayStation-5 Consoles are manufactured.

So it is still difficult to estimate when the PlayStation 5 (and also the Xbox Series X and Series S) will be available in sufficient numbers. At some point in spring, however, the situation should relax a little.