Sony Denies Bloomberg’s Report that PS4 Production is Continuing in 2022 to Make Up for PS5 Shortage

posted on 2022-01-14 12:00 EST by Alex Mateo

Sony denies that it had plans to discontinue PS4 assembly at end of 2021

NLab reported on Friday that Sony has denied Bloomberg’s report that Sony would continue producing PlayStation 4 consoles to make up for the ongoing shortage of PlayStation 5 consoles. Bloomberg had also reported that Sony previously planned to discontinue PS4 assembly at the end of 2021. Sony Interactive Entertainment clarified to NLab that there was no such plan to end PS4 production at the end of last year. As such, Sony is not withdrawing a suspension to produce the PS4, but rather, the company is producing PS4 consoles because their production and sales had already been planned to continue in parallel with PS5. Sony added that as with previous hardware generation transitions, it will produce and sell both old and new hardware.

According to Bloomberg, Sony confirmed the decision with its assembly partners in late 2021. Bloomberg had reported that continued production would add “about a million” PS4 consoles.

Sony previously announced in January 2021 that that it has halted production of all models of the PS4 Slim (except for the “Jet Black” model) and PS4 Pro models in Japan in order to free up production lines for the PS5.

Bloomberg previously reported in November 2021 that Sony has reduced the number of PlayStation 5 units that it will assemble from 16 million to about 15 million units for the fiscal year ending March 2022 due to ongoing component shortages.

As of July 2021, Sony has sold over 10 million units of the PS5 worldwide since its launch in November 2020.

Semiconductor chips have been in short supply since 2020, with the shortage leading to long demand queues for affected industries such as automobiles, game consoles, computer hardware, farming and medical equipment, and other industries. Personnel shortages due to the new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, as well as shifting trade agreements and a current boom in cryptomining are some of the factors affecting the shortage.

Source: NLab via Hachima Kikо̄