Sony, Nintendo videogame machines likely to be in short supply all year: Reports

The chip shortage is beginning to take a toll on the gaming industry with Japanese multinational conglomerates Sony Group and Nintendo Co announcing that their flagship videogame machines are likely to be in short supply this year, The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.

While Nintendo’s president Shuntaro Furukawa said the industry is unlikely to overcome the shortage soon, Sony’s chief financial officer Hiroki Totoki said COVID-19 restrictions in China, including a lockdown in Shanghai, made it difficult for companies to manufacture and export components used in the game machines.

“There’s no end in sight to the semiconductor shortage at this point," The Wall Street Journal quoted Furukawa as saying.

Totoki said Sony plans to sell 18 million PlayStation 5 videogame consoles this financial year ending March 2023, buoyed by the robust game sales in the fourth quarter of last fiscal which helped it more than double its operating profit. Last year, Sony had said it aimed to sell 22.6 million consoles by March 2022.

“What I can say now is that we can procure enough components for 18 million units,” Financial Express quoted Totoki as saying at a press briefing.

However, the Japanese conglomerate said it may have to revise the production target in view of further lockdowns in China to control the spread of the pandemic.

Unfortunately for gamers, the PlayStation 5 has been notoriously in short supply since its introduction in 2020.

Despite selling only 11.5 million units of PS5 machines till March 2022, Sony reported a record operating profit of $9.2 billion last fiscal year on the back of solid results from its movie studio, music division and consumer-electronics section.

On the other hand, sales and profit of Japanese conglomerate Nintendo fell in the last fiscal and is forecast to slide further in the current year, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Nintendo sold more than 23 million Switch machines last fiscal, which is 20 percent lower than its sale in the previous year. Sales in this fiscal is expected to fall to 21 million units, although even that figure was not assured amid uncertainties over supplies of semiconductors and other components, Furukawa said.