#Insurmountable xbox series#

Increased Demand, Scalpers, and High Prices Both Playstations and Xboxes are made in China, so shipping delays held up available supply. The logistics problem continued in places like Guangdong province, a busy exporting hub in southern China, where issues like shipping vessel delays, ongoing changes to port call schedules, and surges in COVID-19 cases slowed things to an even greater degree. Available shipping containers were also scant, so any products that were ready for shipping from ports that were up and running struggled to get out. Ports all over the world closed or drastically decreased flow due to COVID-19, and even available products and supplies were delayed by weeks or months. To make matters worse, there were bottlenecks in the supply chain that hindered suppliers and manufacturers. It’s not as if they had a back stockroom packed with millions of chips at the ready. The end result was a diminished supply of chips available for the international market, and that meant Sony and Microsoft had to get in line with everybody else across industries. Some chipmakers like AMD, even outsourced the manufacturing of their chips because it was cheaper. The sheer volume of products in the current digital age that require microchips is simply staggering, as well. First of all, the number of microchip manufacturers that supply the international market was small, to begin with, and that number shrank during the pandemic. The ongoing shortage has certainly affected the production of both the PS5 and the Xbox, and the cause of the shortage is multi-faceted. Numerous industries, including automobiles, appliances, computers, smart home tech, and yes, gaming consoles, use the tiny but might microchip (aka, semiconductor). When factories across industries shut down due to the virus, many microchip (aka, semiconductor) manufacturers in China also temporarily halted production. If you want to trace it all back to the first domino that started the fall, it’s most definitely COVID-19. Let’s take a closer look as to what’s causing the sparse stock, as well as where you should look to find one.ĬOVID-19 and the Global Microchip Shortage Even months after it all began, it remains a challenge to buy one. There are myriad factors as to why it’s been so excruciating for would-be buyers to get their hands on these two gaming consoles, and it’s not just because of their rampant popularity. Whatever gets made gets sold, and the rest of us are left high and dry. It’s the millions of consumers who have to wait in the wings for their ship/console to come in.

#Insurmountable xbox series#

The PS5 is outselling the Xbox Series X by a factor of 2-to-1, but neither one is hurting in terms of sales volumes. Sony sold 4.5 million of them before the end of last year, and Microsoft sold about half that. Just before the 2020 holiday shopping season kicked off, Sony and Microsft released their consoles. Sony delayed the scheduled Jrelease date of their latest console because they felt it wasn’t time to celebrate in the midst of the pandemic. Consumers have been scouring the internet and retail stores to figure out where to buy PS5 or Xbox Series X consoles, and even if they find them the prices are stratospheric. The anticipation for both consoles, especially the PS5, was almost insurmountable. And it’s been exacerbated by the need for stay-at-home entertainment due to the fallout from the pandemic. The struggle has been real ever since both consoles released in November of last year. Consider yourself in miserable company if you’ve been searching everywhere to find a Sony Playstation 5 or a Microsoft Xbox Series X that’s been in stock for more than a couple of hours, to no avail.