Sony will reportedly make millions of extra PS5s to meet COVID-19 demand
Oculus may also be building more VR headsets during the lockdown.
Sony will build twice as many PlayStation 5s in 2020 as it had originally planned, according to reports from Bloomberg and Nikkei. Rather than producing five or six million consoles, the company aims to manufacture up to nine or 10 million, depending on whether you believe Nikkei or Bloomberg, respectively. That massive boost is attributed to the extra entertainment demand from folks locked at home by the coronavirus.
Considering that the PS5’s launch is tentatively set for “holiday 2020,” those figures would be pretty massive. For some perspective, the PS4 originally launched in November 2013 (yes, that long ago) and Sony had sold 4.2 million by of the end of the year.
Facebook is also increasing Oculus VR headset production for that reason, Nikkei reports. Its goal is to ship 2 million headsets by the end of 2020, a 50 percent increase over units shipped in 2019.
The pandemic might have boosted demand, but it could also stymie Sony’s and Facebook’s efforts to ship the extra devices in time for the holidays. Most are manufactured in China and shipped via ocean freighters, and COVID-19 demand for consoles and other home entertainment products has jammed everything up. Nintendo, for one, had trouble stocking Switches to keep up with demand for that reason. As such, Sony may reportedly try to use air cargo, despite the fact that many carriers are operating at reduced capacity due to COVID-19.
