Buy PS5? Sony hires planes to fly over PlayStation

Still looking for a PS5? Sony is doing everything it can to get enough devices here. In the UK they even hire planes for it.

Fixing a PS5 for Christmas? That is not as easy as it seems. Sony is still struggling with large backlogs in their production due to the shortage of semi-conductors. This makes it difficult for Sony to increase production of the game consoles. That is striking news, because in ten days Sony will celebrate the first anniversary of the PlayStation 5. A year later, the company is still unable to keep up with the enormous demand.

Hire Boeing 747s

Although Sony does everything it can to make and ship enough units. The British newspaper writes The Sun that the company hires jumbo jets to ship cargo to the United Kingdom. A first flight, Korean Air Cargo flight KE9503, flew between Seoul and London on November 1. A total of three Boeing 747s would fly between the UK and Asia before mid-November.

Normally, Sony ships its games console with large container ships from its production locations in Asia to Europe. Now that they’re hiring planes, it seems they either can’t get enough container capacity to ship enough units to the UK, or they want to move the units faster. That makes sense, because traditionally the holidays are heyday for game console makers. Especially now that the PS5 has been released for almost a year, the patience of gamers is gradually running out.

Whether Sony will also send devices to the European mainland by plane is not yet known, although that seems likely. It will allow Sony to ship units from Asia to Europe more quickly. Earlier this year made Sony CFO Hiroki Totoki announced that enough chips had been purchased to produce 14.8 million PS5 game consoles by 2021. Sony will probably want to put the majority of them on the shelves before Christmas. In that case, hiring cargo aircraft can contribute to reduced transport time. For example, an airplane can bridge the distance in half a day, while a ship takes about thirty days.

At the moment, deliveries are still made by container ships, which means that new deliveries are only made to Belgian and Dutch retailers every few weeks. For example, in October PS5s (paying) were raffled off at Coolblue. Although you are often obliged to buy games and accessories.

Own Sony web store?

There is, however, another glimmer of hope. Earlier this year, Sony planned to set up a European ‘PlayStation Direct’ store. The Japanese manufacturer wants to sell its own game consoles, games, controllers and headphones via the web store. They are already doing that in the United States.

Earlier we wrote that Sony was looking for a (British) person in charge for the European PlayStation Direct store. They seem to have found it, because in a company presentation From PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan, it can be read that the PlayStation Direct store will come to Europe in 2021.

In addition to opening a PlayStation Direct store in the UK, the web store would also come to the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, France and Ireland.

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