Supply problems have hampered the launch of the latest generations of video game consoles. Even now, almost two months after the Xbox X Series i Xbox S Series released, Microsoft is still working to meet demand and has reportedly contacted chip maker AMD to speed up production in the end.
AMD manufactures the GPU and CPU for both consoles, so if it is able to remove the chips faster, Microsoft could, in theory, produce more consoles by extension. As you saw VGC, Microsoft “works as hard as we can” to pump more systems and has even contacted AMD for help, according to Xbox chief Phil Spencer in a recent appearance on Podcast Major Nelson Radio hosted by Xbox Live programming director Larry Hyrb
“I have some people [asking], ‘why didn’t you build more? Why didn’t you start earlier? Why didn’t you send them before? I mean, all these things, “Spencer said.” It really just depends on physics and engineering. We don’t hold them back. We build them as fast as we can. We have all the assembly lines up and running. I was on the phone last week. with [CEO and president] Lisa Su at AMD [asking]”How do we get more? How do we get more?” So it’s something we’re constantly working on. ”
In November, Xbox Chief Financial Officer Tim Stuart projected that Xbox supply problems could last until at least April. In 2020, Microsoft shipped approximately 3.3 million units of its higher-end Xbox X series, per Statistician, and sold approximately 21,000 Xbox Series X and S units in Japan at launch.
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However, Microsoft is not the only one having problems: competitor Sony faces similar shortcomings for its next-generation console, the PlayStation 5, which also depends on AMD for its GPU and CPU.
“But it’s not just us, I think the games have actually come into play in 2020,” Spencer told Hyrb. “Obviously, the PlayStation 5 is very scarce. When you look at AMD and Nvidia graphics cards … right now there is a lot of interest in games and console sales are just a sign of that, game sales are a sign of that and hardware is scarce “.
However, chip makers like AMD and Nvidia already have their hands full with their own supply problems. AMD fought to meet demand for its Ryzen 5000 series processors last year. There is a global lack of GDDR6 memory as supposed helped the bottleneck production for AMD’s Radeon RX 6000 GPUs and Nvidia’s RTX 3000 series, and things aren’t expected to improve until at least February. This could also slow down the production of next-generation consoles, as both the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X and S use GDDR6 RAM.
Therefore, it is not known if AMD would even be able to comply with Microsoft’s call to action. Of course, the coronavirus pandemic and the rush to distribute vaccines could also affect global supply lines. And then there’s the climbers collect the available shares to sell them at a discount. A recent analysis estimates that eBay scalpers have raised more than $ 82 million in sales since September with the resale of next-generation consoles and AMD and Nvidia chips.