You Can't get a PS5 Because of a 1 Dollar Chip

It’s been about half a year since the PS5 launched, and while it’s never abnormal for a console to be hard to find, given how active the scalpers and such are when a new console is announced, the PS5 and Xbox Series X have been abnormally hard to get a hold of. One might assume that the reason for this is the pandemic, and according to a new report by Bloomberg, that assumption is correct… but if you thought the issue was factories closing down, then you’re actually mistaken.

The issue isn’t that there aren’t people to put the devices together: the issue is that there aren’t enough parts. Specifically, display drivers and the similarly tiny and previously anonymous power management chip. It’s not even that these parts are hard to find or expensive — on average they cost about a buck each — it’s that companies assumed there would be less demand for computers during a pandemic, not more, so they under-stocked themselves. Additionally, old manufacturing methods, combined with the fact that a growing number of devices need these otherwise simple parts, means that there’s a lot of stuff that needs these cheap parts but not a lot of places making them.

And apparently, the companies behind them have no interest in boosting production anytime soon, because, and I quote, “existing lines are fully depreciated and fine-tuned for almost perfect yields, meaning basic display drivers can be made for less than a dollar and more advanced versions for not much more.” So even when the pandemic ends, we’re going to be stuck waiting for chips for a the foreseeable future.

All in all, we’re probably going to be going without getting our hands on PS5’s and Xbox Series X’s for a while. But that’s okay: it’s not like there are many games on them anyway.