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Did Sony understimate demand by allocating only 10-15m till March 2021? Poll Inside!

Did Sony vastly understimated demand in their internal projections?


  • Total voters
    311
As many of you have witnessed, whether from afar, or personally, pre-ordering a PS5 has not been an easy task (especially outside the first half hour of the first pre-order wave when pre-orders “erroneously” went live after Sony’s Games Showcase). The PS5 pre-order thread and other individual complaint threads on GAF are witness to the trials and tribulations that many of our fellow Gaffers (and other gamers as a whole), are facing when trying to secure a PS5.

Many have speculated and attributed scarcity to scalpers, online bots, shady GameStop employee’s, whales etc... but the fact is, in the grand scheme of total demand, they represent a very small minority of sales compared to the hundreds of thousands, and millions being snatched up en-masse. The scalper resale market on eBay/Amazon/Craiglist is but a drop in the bucket when total numbers, in the millions, are added up. So while these practices may be frustrating, and may be preventing some of our fellow Gaffers from securing their PS5's; the bigger problem is that there is simply not enough PS5's to go around for everyone.

But if you think scalpers and bots are the only thing you have to worry about then you're wrong my friends. Entering the ring are the homeless.

Homeless people are securing PS5 pre-order spots to sell to desperate gamers in an effort to make a quick buck. Don't believe it? Kid you not..... it's that bad.



Millions of gamers worldwide are showing unprecedented interest in purchasing and pre-ordering a PS5. Whether you're in the U.S/Europe/Asia, you name it, the PS5's go up for pre-order and instantly sell out. You can check out German Gaf, UK Gaf, and NA GAF threads, here, here, here In the U.S, long lines outside popular Games retailer GameStop are common place. Gamers are daring COVID to camp out live for 6, 7, 8, 10 hrs or more with some going away empty handed after the effort. And this is just for the second wave of pre-orders. Even Sony's initiative to reward PlayStation veterans and VIP's a slot is getting saturated by interest.

Some musings....

Musings.jpg



If there is any positive to the madness is that one of gamings rites of passage, camping out for console launch pre-orders is alive and well. Which says a lot about the console's industry health. This will all be gone in an all digital future dominated by cloud subscription services and digital rental services where physical hardware boxes are extinct.

Anyway; this brings us to the crux of the thread.

Is it safe to say that Sony massively underestimated demand?
Should Sony have had better planning when it comes to making sure they had greater manufacturing capacity in order to meet demand?
Shouldn't the Nintendo Switch hardware sales been a big tell tale sign of the unprecedented demand for gaming hardware during COVID?
IF this is just the pre-ordering phase; how bad will it be at launch when we're practically seeing midnight launch type lines this early in the game?
Is the doubling of production by Sony (to 10m-15m consoles until March 2021) too little to meet demand globally in NA, Europe and Asia combined? Should it have been 20m-30m or more units?
Did Sony not see the writing on the wall when looking at the competitive environment (or lack thereof), its enticing launch line up, and the 45+ million PS+ subscribers that are heavily invested in the ecosystem?
Where did their projections go wrong?

Feel free to discuss these topics and post any crazy stories you've read or witnessed so far about your pre-ordering process for PS5s (or Xbox Series X/S).
 
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I don't think they could make more if they wanted to to be brutally honest.
There are only so many 7nm wafers going around.
AMD can only secure so many for consoles - they will of course much prefer to allocate more to Zen 2 and 3, and RDNA (2)/CDNA all of which offer far better margins. Those extra 15k wafers AMD secured from MediaTek won't actually start being seen for a few months still. So here's hoping for Christmas.

Making this kind of stuff isn't just some "Console Printer go brrrrrr" situation. Demand for silicon is at an all time high across all industries and sectors. Supply chains are all stretched at the best of times, and are stretched even thinner due to COVID. So yeah.

Both Sony and Microsoft are likely making as many consoles as they possibly can. They don't want there to be a shortage or backlog - that means fewer people with devices in their hands, spending their money on PS+/Now/XBL/GamePass and software and accessories.
 
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Rolla

Banned
They sold people on PS5 during the PS4 generation. Despite all the recent noise I don't think people understand the momentum Sony has with the PS5 right now.

In Europe the demand is insane. Out pacing the PS4 by a wide margin according to anecdotal reports. But what amazes me is that they're maintaining this momentum during a world wide pandemic.
 
Demand for new consoles on both sides is through the roof.

It’s unfortunate that the last 7-8 years the programs that were primarily used on eBay to snipe people that were not really mainstream are now pretty easy to get and things such as 3000 series graphics cards and console orders are posted online within seconds of using these bots to snap up units

I hope retailers come up with better ways to manage this in the future
 
I have a feeling this is gonna start off stronger then the PS4

It will.

Demand for new consoles on both sides is through the roof.

It’s unfortunate that the last 7-8 years the programs that were primarily used on eBay to snipe people that were not really mainstream are now pretty easy to get and things such as 3000 series graphics cards and console orders are posted online within seconds of using these bots to snap up units

I hope retailers come up with better ways to manage this in the future

A good video on speculation as to why the website crashes took place and what was behind them mostly.

 

Woggleman

Member
What is it with Sony and not having enough consoles? The PS2 was just as bad if not worse. A friend and I camped out overnight for that one but most of my friends didn't get one until the next year.
 

Gamerguy84

Member
Im in the US and not even looking to buy a Series X or S. Yet here they are in my nowinstock.net feed.


r0Qn7ZY.jpg


A simple search and here they are.
 
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never said that, it was ment even the Wii U sold out at launch. No matter how many ps5 they made all would be gone at launch.

Don't know why you brought the Wii U in then since that can be applied to any system. The same happened to the PS4 and we all know how well it did.
 
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Because it’s easily the worse system in recent memory and it sold out at launch.

per the polls question, no matter how many they made they would all be sold out.

I don't think the PS5 will perform anywhere near the Wii U. Even though it will sell out at launch it's probably going to have much longer legs than the Wii U.
 

Yoboman

Member
All launch supply issues are artificial

They've estimated 10 - 15 million and still be supply starved. They could do 20 million if they wanted but it's a bad look for a new system to be sitting on shelves
 
A lot is attributing to this:

1. The PS4 was way more successful than the PS3, so sony is coming off of a lot positive momentum
2. More people are working from home so they have more flexible to go out and wait in line for a pre-order or buy it online (most people are not working on work servers :messenger_tears_of_joy: )
3. People are bored .... due to the pandemic less people are interested in going out which means more interest in staying at home and playing video games, especially once the winter hits

Also Sony and MS wants this, there is a reason consoles sell out every single launch.... it is basically free and positive marketing. They all want that sold/hard to find headline which creates more interest and push the consoles value up.
 
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EverydayBeast

thinks Halo Infinite is a new graphical benchmark
This is almost not fair, bait, one of the best console manufacturers and they should have the preorders, consoles and than more consoles. Would much rather have too many consoles than not enough, something Sony will have to make an adjustment for when PS6, PS7, PS8 Sony can make the adjustments other wise people will remain unhappy with console pre ordering it’s usually a step in the right direction..
 
Your best bet on getting one is going to Walmart/Target on release. Usually they will have a few extras left, but with this COVID you never know.

Last time around Target was restocking at a rate of 2 PS4's per store per 3 days. Don't know the allocation on launch date but I do know the allocation exactly after launch date was that.
 
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Arkam

Member
Demand has been very high based on what I am reading and seeing from my social media feed. Between PS5 pre-orders and Geforce 3000 series cards, there are a lot of disappointed/pissed off people. I think there are going to be some sad kids this christmas. Sony said they are expecting to have 2x as many consoles as they did for PS4 launch. I think that is awesome, but not near enough.
 

Warnen

Don't pass gaas, it is your Destiny!
If it’s going to be like the switch, resellers are gonna keep them out of hands of people that actually want em for some time to come as well.

Sony and MS should do direct sales like Apple and just push dates as you order. Take some pressure off.
 

Bryank75

Banned
If it’s going to be like the switch, resellers are gonna keep them out of hands of people that actually want em for some time to come as well.

Sony and MS should do direct sales like Apple and just push dates as you order. Take some pressure off.
Agree, less online store sales. More physical stores where they can keep some tabs on where the consoles ar e going.
 
I don't know why retailers don't sell more than 1 system per household. I was trying to get a Nintendo Ring Fit Adventure for 4 months, because scalpers kept using bots to buy them all from Best Buy, Target, Walmart and Amazon. I had check everyday to no avail. Then one day, Target stopped allowing online orders, and you had to come in to the store. Finally, I was able to get one.

Best Buy, Target and Walmart should just sell them in the stores for the first two months of release, or just after Christmas, and only sell 1 per console per household.
 

Warnen

Don't pass gaas, it is your Destiny!
Agree, less online store sales. More physical stores where they can keep some tabs on where the consoles ar e going.

Sadly most if not all of Sony and MS retail stores have closed. Apple does a really good online sale, stuff just doesn’t sell out. Your order just gets pushed a few weeks at a time.

Unless you must have something day one, and really with these lauch line up do you really? This would totally kill FOMO and prob knee cap resellers after the initial batch.


But let’s be real, FOMO and the hunt are what MS and Sony want.
 

Bryank75

Banned
Sadly most if not all of Sony and MS retail stores have closed. Apple does a really good online sale, stuff just doesn’t sell out. Your order just gets pushed a few weeks at a time.

Unless you must have something day one, and really with these lauch line up do you really? This would totally kill FOMO and prob knee cap resellers after the initial batch.


But let’s be real, FOMO and the hunt are what MS and Sony want.
Looks like it's working... although I knew demand for PS5 at least would be very high before everything kicked off.

If they really wanted to capitalize on FOMO, they'd have high end versions with different design/ aesthetic and materials like you'd find on a high end phone, water cooling etc for 800 or more dollars that are allocated based on how involved you are with playstation etc.
Sold straight from PS online. Limited quantities obviously.
 

nush

Gold Member
Honestly they should had shot for 20-25 million. With the pandemic and people staying at home this should had been expected for all consoles.

They didn't start production planning this year. They cant "Just make more" or "Make them faster" it's not that simple.
 
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