Sony is said to have raised the initial production order for PS5, according to new reports from Nikkei and Bloomberg. The Japanese platform owner was originally expecting to produce around 5-6 million units by March 2021. However, as it expects a higher demand due to COVID-19, it has now ordered 10 million units to be produced in 2020 alone.
The mass production on the next-gen console has begun in June, and the initial batch should allow Sony to have around 5 million units ready by the end of September. Additional 5 million units have been ordered and should be ready between October and December.
Anyway, these should be shipped for the first half of 2021, while the original batch would serve for the Holiday 2020 launch.
This has also led the company to order more DualSense controllers, compared to the original 10 million, as to be in line with the production of the PS5.
The reports make it clear that, despite the increase in production, there may shipping constraints that might limit the output of PlayStation 5 available at release.
According to analyst Daniel Ahmad, “producing 10 million by the end of the calendar year sure is something” as “it shows they expect strong demand both at launch and through 2021.”
4.5 million PS4 units were shipped to retail by the end of 2013, the year of its release, and Xbox was similarly at 3.9 million. It took the Japanese platform owner until June 2014 to ship 10 million units to retail, though, and this means it anticipates higher demand for PS5 compared to PlayStation 4.
Sony has yet to detail pricing and release date for the console but is expected to have another event where it should provide more information soon.
