Report: PlayStation 5 Is Suffering Manufacturing Issues

The PlayStation 5 might still be on track to launch this year, but things apparently aren't going smoothly behind the scenes. A new report claims that the PS5 has run into manufacturing issues, and Sony has reduced the number of consoles it expects to produce this year.

The new report comes from Bloomberg's Takashi Mochizuki. Citing sources close to PlayStation's production line, Mochizuki writes that Sony has estimated it will be able to ship 11 million total PS5 units by March 2021, down from the 15 million units the publisher estimated earlier this year.

Yesterday, industry analyst Daniel Ahmad reported that Sony was resorting to shipping PS5 units via air instead of sea, in an attempt to meet demand later this year. Ahmad expects the publisher to book over 60 flights from October through the rest of 2020 via Delta. Although much faster than transporting retail units via sea, air shipments are more expensive.

This all follows less than two months after Sony reportedly increased PS5 production orders. Two reports claimed that Sony was preparing to increase PS5 units to 10 million by the end of 2020, but that some of these units wouldn't be going on sale until early 2021. With this new report from Bloomberg, it's pretty safe to say that the increased production targets from PlayStation have been affected.

Currently, there's no firm release date for the PlayStation 5 later this year, nor is there a price tag for either the all-digital or standard versions of the PS5. That could all change tomorrow however, when Sony puts on a PS5 games showcase on Wednesday, September 16, at 1 p.m. PT.