DFC Intelligence, a company specializing in consultancy in the gaming sector, has announced that it has halved its estimates for the growth of the console market for 2022, as the availability of PS5 and Xbox Series X | S in stores could be even more scarce than expected.
DFC previously estimated console market growth of 8% in 2022 over the previous year but has now revised its forecast, dropping to 4% for a total of $ 49 billion. The company had obviously already taken into account the problems related to the semiconductor crisis, but apparently, the situation has worsened further, probably also due to the temporary closure of the second largest Foxconn plant.
“We had already predicted that PS5 units would be limited, but now we think the situation is even worse,” DFC’s David Cole said in an interview with GamesIndustry.
DFC says that the low availability is negatively impacting both PS5 and Xbox Series X | S sales, but that Sony is the company that will lose the most , given the high demand for its flagship console, which could therefore guarantee a benefit to Microsoft.
“Looking ahead the question is whether the PS5 shortage will allow Microsoft to gain ground with the Xbox Series X | S and its Game Pass online service,” says Cole. “Surveys recently conducted by DFC show that PS5 is still the console of choice by a significant margin. However, with Microsoft continuing to grow its content library that could change.”
In any case, the new estimates of DFC represent bad news not only for Microsoft and Sony but also for all the players who, after a year and a half after the launch of PS5 and Xbox Series X | S, still have not managed to move to the next-gen as the two consoles are very difficult to find in stores.