So basically I was checking PS5 price online last week. Just casually, like I do every few days. And I noticed it went up again. Not by small amount also, I mean a proper jump.
I got little frustrated honestly. This console is like 4–5 years old now. Shouldn’t it be cheaper by now? My friend bought his graphics card two years after launch and paid almost half the original price. So why is PS5 going the other direction?
I started searching about it. Spent maybe 2–3 hours reading random articles and Reddit threads. And the answer I kept seeing was, chips. And also AI. Both connected.
The Chip Inside PS5
PS5 has a chip called AMD Oberon inside it. It handles everything, the games, the graphics, the loading speed, all of it. This chip is not made by Sony themselves. It’s made by a company called TSMC in Taiwan. Sony just designs what they need and TSMC actually manufactures it.
Now here’s where AI comes in.
ChatGPT, image AI, video AI, all of this runs on chips sitting in giant server rooms somewhere. And companies like Google, Microsoft, Meta, they are ordering these chips in crazy amounts. Like, billions of dollars worth of orders every few months.
TSMC makes chips for everyone. PS5, iPhones, AI servers, laptops. But factory has a limit on how many it can produce per month.
So Sony is basically standing in queue behind these giant companies who are throwing insane money at chip orders. Sony gets less priority. Less chips means less PS5 units produced. Less units, same demand, price goes up.
That’s the main thing honestly.
Why Can’t They Just Build More Factories
I thought same thing. Just build more factories, problem solved right?
But one chip factory costs around 15–20 billion dollars to build. And takes minimum 3–4 years before first chip comes out properly. TSMC is building one in Arizona right now. Not fully ready yet. And even when it’s ready, AI demand is growing so fast that new supply probably gets absorbed immediately anyway.
Not a quick fix.
The Yen Problem Also
This one I didn’t know before. PS5 is made in Japan. Sony is Japanese company. But global sales happen in dollars, euros, rupees.
Japanese yen became very weak in last 2 years compared to dollar. So Sony ends up making less money per unit even if price looks same to us. To cover that loss they raised prices in many countries. Simple math for them, painful for us.
So Why AI Specifically
Before AI became this big thing, chip demand was more predictable. Phones, laptops, consoles. Companies could plan supply properly.
But from 2023 onwards suddenly every big tech company started building AI products and all of them need same advanced chips urgently. Demand jumped so fast that supply had no chance to keep up.
Sony got caught in middle of all this. They didn’t do anything wrong. AI just came and ate up large portion of chip supply that Sony was also depending on.
Will Price Come Down
Probably not soon. New factories are coming but AI spending is also going up same time. Sony has no big reason to give discount on PS5 when demand is still there.
My plan is to wait for year-end sale and see if any bundle deal shows up. Maybe with extra controller or a game included. That’s about best I can do right now.