Sony will finally release the PlayStation 5 in mainland China during the next quarter. As analyst Daniel Ahmad points out, players in the country have already been importing the console from abroad.
Originally from Texas, Ashcraft has called Osaka home since 2001. He has authored six books, including most recently, The Japanese Sake Bible.
DISCUSSION
So Sony has shipped ~4.5 million PS5s in 2020. They only expect to get out about 16-18 million in 2021.
According to VGChartz, 53% are sold in the US, 40% to EU, and 7% to Japan. So best case 9.5 millionish would come to the US in 2021 if they kept the current split.
China being a HUGE market I would assume will land somewhere between EU and US in terms of demand. So lets for argument’s sake say that we take the 93% going to US/EU and split it 3 ways adding in China. Each region now gets about 31%. So now the US is going to be getting around 5.5 million PS5s this year. That sucks.
Get supply to the current regions before opening up to new regions!