With the PlayStation 4 selling 1 million units back on November 15th in the United States and Canada, it left stores in the US will little to no stock, and completely cleared out all Canadian retailers.
In order to make sure that gamers are able to safely walk into a store and buy a PlayStation 4, Jack Tretton revealed to Forbes how they’ve held back manufacturing on PS4s to meet demand following the initial launch:
The thing that we’ve really made an effort to do, and I think the retailers have as well, is we could’ve pre-sold every unit we could manufacture and it would be a great event for November 15th, but nobody would bother coming to the stores if they hadn’t presold one. So retailers have held back quantities. We’ve held back manufacturing to make it available on subsequent days after November 15th. So my hope is that anybody who wants one before Christmas has an opportunity to get one.
When it comes to PS4 demand, Tretton believes they’ll be “chasing” it, “But I do think the supplies are gonna be great. And in terms of numbers, greater than any launch we’ve ever had in the past.”
During a recent Best Buy earnings call (via Seeking Alpha), CEO Hubert Joly revealed how they were expecting new PS4 stock next week, and the margins on the systems aren’t great:
[…] The quantities, Sony has reported, right, to 1 million units shipped and which is much faster than the PS3. So that’s very encouraging. We… Best Buy tends to do well in hardware even though, as Sharon has highlighted, the margins are not as exciting as the volumes, but that is very good. And we’ll get more inventory next week… We have the plan to keep some of that inventory for our best customers.
Are you going to be looking for a PS4 before the end of this year? Let us know in the comments below.
