Core shortage crisis is difficult to solve Sony has lowered its production target of PS5 game consoles by 1 million units for the whole year.

Japanese entertainment and electronics giant Sony Group (Sony Group Corp) has cut its production forecast for PlayStation 5 games consoles by 1 million this fiscal year due to spare parts and logistics restrictions, media reported on Wednesday.

Sony had aimed to produce more than 16 million PS5, in the current fiscal year (to the end of March next year) to meet its current sales target and to take the lead in next year's production. Sony has now lowered its production target to about 15 million, making it more difficult for PS5 to meet its target of selling 14.8 million units, according to people familiar with the matter.

In October, Sony said it expected to sell 14.8 million PS5 consoles this fiscal year, a goal that takes into account the shortage of parts.

Hiroki Totoki, Sony's chief financial officer, said on a conference call at the end of last month that logistics problems and parts shortages were increasingly affecting Sony, with PS5 sales slightly lower than expected in the third quarter.

He had previously warned that any resurgence of the epidemic could affect the company's supply of spare parts. In July, the PS5 became the fastest Sony console to sell 10 million units, but since then it has lagged behind its predecessor, the PlayStation 4.

PS5 has been hard to get since it went on sale a year ago, mainly because Sony doesn't have enough products to distribute around the world. The uneven promotion of vaccines in developing countries where Sony suppliers have production bases has made the supply of chips and other components unpredictable.

Chipmakers from Toshiba (Toshiba Corp.), which provides power management chips, to TSMC have warned that chip production is unlikely to return to normal in 2022.

Sony is not the only company affected by chip shortages. In early November, its competitor Nintendo Co. Cut its full-year sales forecast for the Switch series of game consoles by 1.5 million, while the US game giant Valve Corp. Citing global supply chain problems, it postponed the launch date of its handheld console Steam Deck from December to February next year.

Sony's manufacturing partners expect tight PS5 supplies to last until 2022 and say Sony will face big challenges if it wants to produce enough PS5 and hit its sales target of 22.6 million units in the next fiscal year.

Against a backdrop of global semiconductor shortages, Sony will work with TSMC to build a $7 billion chip factory in Japan. It is reported that the new plant will supply semiconductors for Sony's image sensor business. Construction of the new plant will begin in 2022 and is scheduled to start production by the end of 2024, the two companies said in a press release.