Sony says the PlayStation 5 shortage is over

The PlayStation 5 shortage is finally over — at least according to Sony. “Everyone who wants a PS5 should have a much easier time finding one at retailers globally, starting from this point forward,” said Jim Ryan, the company’s gaming boss, during its CES presentation. The company also announced that it’s sold around 30 million consoles at this point. That’s around 5 million more than the last time it released sales numbers in November.

It’s been a long time getting to this point; the PlayStation 5 launched in November 2020, and it wasn’t until August 2022 that we declared it “almost easy to buy.” For most of the console’s life, getting one required you to be either very lucky, relatively on-the-spot with drops, or willing to pay scalpers or Best Buy significantly more than the console’s MSRP. Even recently, the main way to get it was via a $550 bundle, which included the PS5 with disk drive, and a game — that’s fine if you were already going to buy Horizon Forbidden West or God of War Ragnarok, but a pretty steep markup if you were hoping for the $399.99 digital console.

During the presentation, Ryan thanked PlayStation fans for their patience as the company “managed unprecedented demand amid global challenges over the past two years.”

At time of writing, Best Buy and GameStop have both versions of the console listed as out of stock on their online stores — though the latter does say that at least one of its locations in my area has the regular one in stock. Sony’s direct store will let you add a digital edition to your cart if you sign in, while the disk version is listed as unavailable (unless you want to get the God of War bundle).