It’s safe to say Sony did a pretty good job at getting people pumped for its next-generation console. The PS5 has seen an unprecedented amount of interest and demand through its blink and you’ll miss it pre-order rounds, however its popularity could be about to leave some gamers disappointed on its November 12 launch in North America and other select regions.
Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan concedes that while the pre-order round has been encouraging, there is a very real chance that people will be leaving stores and closing browser tabs empty-handed on launch day as the supply is struggling to meet current demand.
“The demand as expressed by the level of pre-order has been very, very considerable,” Ryan says in an interview with Reuters. “It may well be that not everybody who wants to buy a PS5 on launch day will be able to find one.” While he does issue this warning, he also assures that Sony is “working as hard as [it] ever can” to produce enough consoles to meet the massive demand.
So unfortunately for those who have missed out on pre-orders, there’s still no guarantee that you’ll be able to nab yourself a console to play the best PS5 games straight away.
Ryan’s comments appear to be in reference solely to the North American market, but he may as well be talking about global availablity as pre-orders in all regions have sold out in minutes. The November 12 release date for the PS5 in North America is shared with other markets like Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, and Japan.
Having enough stock to supply some of the biggest gaming markets in the world at the same time is clearly proving to be a difficult task but hopefully Sony can keep the number of disappointed gamers as low as possible.
The console will be released to the rest of the world a week later on November 19.