Christmas shopping for PlayStation 5 ends with no PlayStation 5

A notice at a home appliance store in Kawasaki says PlayStation 5 has been sold out. The Yasuro Suzuki Santa sleigh may be lighter this year, much to the disappointment of children and adults who put game consoles at the top of their Christmas wish lists.

The global semiconductor shortage pushed by the rapid digitization of products that require chips, has caused manufacturers to struggle to increase production.

Stores have resorted to lottery systems for the highly prized items. Online auctions and other resale methods of game consoles have resulted in a surge in prices, particularly ahead of the Christmas gift-giving season.

Sony Interactive Entertainment Inc.'s PlayStation 5 has been hard to find. Shortages of parts, such as semiconductors, have reduced production to a crawl.

Nintendo Co. has looked at the design of its Nintendo Switch console and is considering using substitute parts to mitigate the impact of semiconductor shortage.

Game-related products have been one of the most sought-after items of children for the Christmas season. This year, when stay-at- home lifestyles continue because of the COVID 19 epidemic, is no exception.

According to a survey conducted by the toy maker Bandai Co. the No. The 1 present that children want this year is game software, chosen by 16.3 percent of the respondents.

A game device placed second, at 5.5 percent.

The survey showed that parents are expected to spend an average of 9,957 yen $87 on a Christmas gift for their child, up 713 yen from the previous year.

That figure is well below the retail price of most game consoles. Demand for the PlayStation 5 has exceeded supply since its release in November 2020. In July of this year, the global sales volume exceeded 10 million units.

It was a faster pace than for sales of the PlayStation 4, which became available in 2013

In November of this year, the domestic sales volume of PlayStation 5 was 28,324 according to Famitsu, a game information magazine, a drop to one-third of the figure for the previous month.

From December 6 to 12 there were 1,133 units sold in Japan.

More than 190,000 Nintendo Switches were sold over the course of the seven day period.

Retail sales have fallen as a result of PlayStation 5 being highly popular, but because of shipments to stores have decreased, Famitsu said.

Due to the lack of supply, electric appliance retailers have used a lottery system to sell the few PlayStation 5 consoles they have on hand.

Google Trends said that PS 5 lottery searches in Japan have increased compared to the previous year because people are so eager for a chance to win the console.

Some people have been selling the product on flea market apps, and prices have gone up.

The suggested retail price for the regular version of PlayStation 5 is 54,978 yen, including tax.

In one online deal, a PlayStation 5 sold for more than 100,000 yen.

The Fukuoka prefectural government seized a PlayStation 5 with attached headphones from a delinquent taxpayer. It fetched 89,999 yen at a public auction in late November.

In order to prevent scams, Mercari Inc. removed a post from its marketplace app when it confirms that a seller does not have a posted item on hand. Since autumn, Nojima Co., a mass retailer of home electric appliances, has asked customers to write their names in ballpoint pen on the PlayStation 5 boxes upon purchase to prevent the products from being resold as new. Store staff remove the encasement of the controller to deter resales.

A Nojima representative said that they wanted to provide more buying opportunities for people who want to purchase the game console.

The impact of supply constraint on parts, such as semiconductors, has become bigger, said Hiroki Totoki, the CEO of Sony Group Corp., the parent company of Sony Interactive Entertainment, at a corporate meeting in late October.

In early November, Nintendo announced that it had reduced its expected sales volume for the Switch in fiscal 2021 to 24 million, down 1.5 million from the initial forecast.

Kenji Fukuyama, an analyst at UBS Securities Japan Co., said semiconductor manufacturers may be giving priority to automakers in chip supplies.

He said that cloud games, which do not need gaming hardware, may increase if game devices are hard to obtain in the long run.