The pandemic has hit the lives of each of us hard, and not even the economy has been exempt, as the production situation of the PlayStation 5 shows us. For months and months, even since launch, we’ve seen a chronic shortage of Sony’s next-gen consoles. This shortage has been closely linked to COVID-19, with the lack of chips and other key components for the assembly of consoles.

So, among people who have turned to touts, buying the much coveted PS5 at crazy prices, and those who have remained on old-gen waiting for better times, Sony has still managed to keep its market stable.
But what are the future plans, at least on the production side, of the Japanese company?

Plus PlayStation 4
At least in the short term, as seems to have been confirmed in recent weeks by a report, the solution found is simple. Sony will continue to produce, and indeed will increase production, of PS4.
If in fact, according to the report, originally, the production of the old-gen consoles should have reached a stop at the end of 2021, the coronavirus has changed plans. And the new plans, valid for the whole of 2022, would refer to the production of one million PS4s during the year.

According to Bloomberg, the original author of the report, the whole thing would be to protect Sony’s commercial interests. In fact, this additional production of old-gen consoles would serve to maintain the presence on the market, waiting for the abundant flow of PlayStation 5. It would also serve to continue to have close relationships with the component manufacturing companies, so as to strengthen the agreements for the years to come.

Sony’s response to the report
After the report, which for many had been revealing, however, came the declaration of a representative of Sony.
During an interview, the latter limited himself to denying that the additional production of PS4 is due to the shortage of PS5. “There has never been any plan to end PlayStation 4 production at the end of last year”, these are the pithy words of him, which leave no room for doubt.

So, in reality, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 would still have continued to share the videogame scene, a bit like what happened with PS3 and PS4.

Certainly, however, regardless of what were the intentions of the Sony management pre-launch of the next-gen, having PlayStation 4 still to grind support can help the company and not a little.