PS5 and Xbox Series X next gen consoles could face shortages until mid-2021

Sony opened up pre-orders for the PS5 last week and the initial estimated stock dried up very fast. The situation will most likely be similar with the Xbox Series X pre-orders that have opened up today. Despite Sony’s and Microsoft’s efforts to ramp up production for the next gen consoles, it looks like the supply chains will still be overwhelmed and shortages are now expected to last until mid-2021.

Commercial Times notes that MediaTek’s 7 nm wafer allocations at TSMC were cancelled since most of the chips from that batch cannot be shipped to Huawei due to the bans. This situation allowed AMD to schedule production for an additional 13,000 7 nm wafers until December this year, and most of these chips are meant to be integrated in the next gen consoles.

To put things into perspective, 13,000 wafers would roughly translate to 1,352,000 console APUs. This is just a small fraction of the 102,000 wafers ordered by AMD for the next gen consoles in the second half of this year. Apparently, the console APU yield rates are around 58%, so almost half of the chips are discarded at present. This situation should see significant improvements towards the end of the year, but the estimated demand for the console APUs will still put tremendous pressure on the existing supply, leading to extended shortages that could last until mid-2021, when most phone makers will have shifted to 5 nm chips.