Angel and Felipe managed to buy an Xbox Series X and a PlayStation 5 in recent months.
They compare it practically with winning the lottery and in no case was it as simple as arriving at a store and having a unit.
Microsoft and Sony, respective manufacturers of video consoles, recognize problems in the supply chain.
Meanwhile, the large surfaces are resisting to admit that there will hardly be units for all who want to give away this Christmas.
“I learned that they came out on sale and I connected with the mobile and the computer at a time to access with two IP and have more options,” says Felipe.
The high volume of visits, recalls him, it was practically impossible to navigate through the page and when I was about to throw the towel. “I told myself that I would try three more times and it went to the third one” -say.
He was not even the model that interested him the most.
Angel, on the other hand, was made with a PlayStation 5 through the store of your bank and also in a pack that included, or not, a game and an additional command.
By knowing that they were going to receive a remittance he asked the manager to tell him, although finally and before him he had to resort to a telegram channel and connect at 7 o’clock in the morning.
“The bad thing is that it was funded by nose,” he explains, and paid for about 750 euros a total.
As he published recentlyBloomberg, Sony has manufactured close to one million less units than planned from the PlayStation 5 that launched a year ago.
His great rival, Microsoft, does not manage to guarantee the stock of his Xbox series X -Yes can be found the Xbox Series S, a less powerful version and without reader- and the corridors of any commercial center, specialized or not, reflect this reality.
This is unite that the scarcity has attracted speculators, who use Bots to try to buy any unit that appears, even time, on the Internet and then resell it for much more money.
“We will replenish Xbox series X | s this year, but demand is still high,” explains a Microsoft spokesman without giving more details.
“We are working as quickly as possible with our partners manufacturers and retailers to accelerate production and shipping and thus be able to satisfy unprecedented demand.”
Other minor relevance consoles – the most important is the Steam Deck of Valve, but it also happened to Play Date – have had to delay a launch at the end of this year due to problems in the supply chain.
This scarce is already a reality face to Black Friday and threatens the Christmas campaign.
So much so, that the consoles do not even appear in the Christmas catalog of El Corte Inglés or that of Mediamarkt.
On the websites of these stores or FNAC, when performing this search appears as a result the aforementioned S series, the only new generation console that is available and only at the moment: sources of the sector predict that it becomes the gift of this
Christmas, although it arrives in the form of a second course.
All these stores were contacted by the world about the supply for the coming weeks and none answered the questions.
Officially, in the sector it appeals to the forecast: the provisioning is done months in advance, precisely to avoid this type of crisis.
The problem is that, in this case, those who should have been providing the consoles have not been able to produce them at the desired rhythm at any time, nor do they seem to get it in the immediate future.
You can not fill the bathtub if the tap water does not come out.
“The stores do not have because companies do not have,” summarizes the director of a publication published in video games under condition of anonymity.
“A Sony in Spain, the PS5 arrive with dropper and check them, as they can, among the shops … but there are knitting to reserve some,” he continues.
Thus, the only solution for those seeking this gift is to sign up for a waiting list and, as its name indicates, wait.
“Is the thing fucked up for this Christmas; the people who wanted a PS5 had to have tried it in summer,” sentence.
In fact, he believes that the paradoxical case will be given that Xbox Series S could become the Christmas star gift, as it will be the only alternative for many.
Or, even, the consoles of the previous generation or Nintendo Switch, whose first model was launched almost five years ago and is halfway between both.
This expert also points to the absence of the new PlayStation in catalogs such as El Corte Inglés – “The Bible of Kings Toys” -, which does not appear “because they can not assure that they are going to have it.”
From Facua, they explain easily the reason for a catalog without PS5: “It would be misleading advertising,” says Rubén Sánchez, general secretary of the organization.
“If you advertise products from those who do not have, they would be vulnerating legislation,” says Sánchez.
And facing the BLACK FRIDAY Offers, he remembers him, the same thing happens, so “If you sell a laptop now at 40% discount, you can not argue after you have run out of stock.”
Videoconsolas, in any case, are practically missing in the catalogs of this campaign, which focuses on other technological products that have also been affected by the crisis of the microprocessors, although on a smaller scale.
As detailed by the world, a worker present in a recent talk with the employees of a large supermarket chain, the director of it warned that this year there will be some problems with some models of telephones for the next campaigns (Apple is another great
Signature that has admitted that it is being affected by the shortage of chips).
Last year it occurred with computers, but for this the company took into account in its forecasts and do not fear the lack of offense.
In the case of PlayStation 5, the measures have been equally: “Neither there are nor expected,” explains this employee.
Guilt, aims, is a Sony that has not been able to produce the rhythm of demand.
At first, they expected that there were stored units waiting to be on sale before Christmas, but they already know that it will not be like that.
While the supply crisis has also affected the toy sector, they do not expect such important shortages as in the case of video game consoles.
“The problems we are having are of a global nature and affect us all, but the degree of intensity is not the same”, reassures José Antonio Pastor, president of the Spanish Association of Toy Manufacturers.
Your supply, explains, is also done with one year – if no more- of time and are already accustomed to working with a very seasonal market, such as Spanish, which concentrates 50% of sales in the last six weeks of the year
.
“We work with a lot of time in advance,” sums up pastor.
“This anticipation has partly attenuated this shortage of microchips,” explains the manager.
Anyway, it does not point that there may be manufacturers that have been affected.
In any case, he recalls that seasonality traditionally causes a breakthrough of some product, since it is very difficult to “tune exactly the forecasts with market behavior.”
That is, what is very fashionable, scarce in recent weeks and this 2021, in addition, will be more complicated to replenish the star products.
“This year that can happen a little more, because those latest industry operations can be committed by the supply jam,” contextualizes pastor.
“They will be punctual and concrete things; therefore, we can not talk about market shortages, but they will miss concrete products,” argues.
Given this, the solution given from the association is simply advancing purchases that are clear: “As soon as possible, better”.
