PS5 supply 'won't catch up with demand' despite 6nm refresh in 2022

Sony's reported move to 6nm may not be enough to free up console stock in 2022 and supply is expected to be limited throughout next year.

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The PS5 will be hard to buy from now through 2022, according to new reports from Bloomberg.

Sony Chief Financial Officer Hiroki Totoki recently held a closed-doors meeting with industry analysts and made the following statement: "I don't think demand is calming down this year and even if we secure a lot more devices and produce many more units of the PlayStation 5 next year, our supply wouldn't be able to catch up with demand," sources attending the meeting told Bloomberg.

Reports also indicate Sony is moving the PlayStation 5 from 7nm+ to TSMC's 6nm (N6) node in 2022 in an effort to boost console production. The N6 process has better yields and is faster to make than 7nm+, TSMC says, but the internal specs and hardware capabilities of the new PS5 SKU will remain the same.

While Sony CFO Totoki didn't confirm the jump to 6nm, the reports do mesh with his comments made at Sony's FY2020 earnings call:

"The PS5 should be more than the PS4, that's what we aim at. Can we drastically increase supply? No, that's not likely. The shortage of semiconductors is one factor that will impact production volume. As for EPS, the semiconductor shortage might have some impact as supply is constrained.

"We could find maybe a second resource or by changing the design we could cope with it. In EPS we took a flexibility maneuver so in Fiscal Year 2021 we could flexibly adapt to the situation."

Sony has yet to confirm these plans, but Totoki's recent comments indicate that stock is unlikely to stabilize even as it produces PS5 consoles on 6nm.

The company expects to ship over 14.8 million PlayStation 5 units from now until March 2022. So far the PS5 is slightly beating the PS4's launch performance.

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