The ship that was blocking the Suez Canal up until Monday morning will affect the shipping of goods worldwide, and that includes the already limited supply of PS5s.
If you've been avoiding headline news, and the slew of memes, for the past few days, then you might not know a ship has been stuck in Egypt's Suez Canal. The blockage has resulted in a backlog of ships waiting patiently for it to be moved out of the way. The good news is the ship, which is named Ever Given, has been freed. The bad news is its stay in the canal might have extended your wait for a PS5.
The Suez Canal is one of the busiest trade routes on the planet. An estimated 10% of all trade passes through it at some point on its journey. A few days of that passage being completely blocked hasn't just resulted in a very long queue of ships waiting to pass, but also means stock in ports that should be on the move by now is yet to be picked up.
Even though the canal has only been blocked for a few days, experts believe the knock-on effect when it comes to delays could go on for months. Since the trade route is used to connect Asia and Europe, and the majority of PlayStation's consoles are manufactured and assembled in Asia, that likely means the already-limited supply of PS5 consoles is only going to get even more scarce.
Many of you reading this who are still yet to find a PS5 will shrug as really, this just means more of the same. Despite the console enjoying the biggest launch in console history, actually finding one to buy at retail price still feels almost impossible. Between scalpers and bots buying up stock and the ongoing semiconductor shortage, there simply aren't enough PS5s to go around.
AMD predicted earlier this year that new-gen consoles will remain hard to come by until the latter half of 2021. What the company didn't foresee was a ship blocking one of the world's busiest trade routes for days. If that does add months onto the transportation of stock, it could well be 2022 before PS5s are readily available worldwide.
Source: Business Insider