People looking for a next-gen console might still have a long wait ahead. AMD’s Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2020 Results suggest that manufacturing issues will result in continued Xbox Series X and PS5 chip shortages. The company’s data and CEO Dr. Lisa Su suggested that the issue will continue until the middle of 2021. AMD also cited both consoles as being part of the cause of increased revenue. It noted its Q4 2020 Enterprise, Embedded, and Semi-Custom Segment earnings, which include income from the PS5 and Xbox Series X chips, were $1.28 billion. [Thanks, Tom’s Hardware!]
As pointed out in AMD’s slide show, both the PS5 and Xbox Series X rely on custom chips from the company. Microsoft and Sony’s systems each have Zen 2-based CPUs and RDNA 2–based GPU.
While systems are hard to find due to the Xbox Series X and PS5 shortages, retailers like GameStop and Walmart announce when they will have systems in-stock. Also, both Microsoft and Sony are directly selling models. The PlayStation Direct site had queues for consoles on both January 26, 2021 and January 27, 2021.
The current expectation from AMD is for production of chips for the PS5 and Xbox Series X to increase enough to meet demand by the second half of 2021.
