PlayStation 5's First Production Run Could Be Limited, But Not For The Reason You Think

It's been an interesting 2020 for the games industry so far, as Sony and Microsoft are both planning to launch new consoles amid a pandemic. Despite the COVID-19 outbreak, both the Xbox Series X and the PlayStation 5 are still slated to launch at the end of the year, but we're learning today that Sony may only make limited quantities of the PlayStation 5 to start.

Surprisingly, Bloomberg explains that this limited run won't necessarily be because of the COVID-19 outbreak. In speaking with people familiar with Sony's plans, Bloomberg learned that Sony "is limiting its initial production run because it expects the PS5's ambitious specs to weigh on demand by leading to a high price at launch."

More specifically, Bloomberg's sources think that Sony will produce 5 to 6 million PS5 consoles by the end of its fiscal year in March 2021, comparing that to the 7.5 million PS4 units it sold during that console's first six months on shelves. These anonymous sources say that while the COVID-19 outbreak has impacted Sony's reveal timeline, it hasn't impacted production yet.

This isn't the first time we've heard that the PlayStation 5 is shaping up to be a costly machine. Back in February, reports claiming that Sony was having problems reining in the PS5's retail price surfaced, with game developers telling Bloomberg that they expect the final retail price of the console to be somewhere around $499 to $549.

Even though this limited initial production run may be down to price and not pandemic, there's no guarantee that the COVID-19 outbreak will leave production untouched as well, so Sony definitely isn't out of the woods in that regard either. We'll just have to wait and see what happens, but don't be surprised to hear news of the PlayStation 5 selling out after launch if this report proves to be accurate.