GDC 2014: PlayStation 4 Supply Constrained Until Summer, PlayStation Camera "Severely" Constrained

Lots of cool things are happening at this year’s Game Developers Conference at San Francisco’s Moscone Cente, many of them revolving around the PlayStation 4. Project Morpheus is bringing virtual reality to the system (at some point), new updates are adding functionality to the Share features and allowing you to pre-load your upcoming games, and there’s even a way to control inFAMOUS: Second Son with your eyes (thanks, IGN). True story. But if you don’t already have a PS4, you may find yourself waiting for a few months still before picking one up.

The Wall Street Journal, and other outlets, sat down with Sony Computer Entertainment group CEO Andrew House at GDC, who cited high demand in all regions, and especially in the US and UK, for the PS4’s scarcity. “Conservatively, as we get into the early summer months, we’ll be closer to a full supply situation,” House told the Journal. Previous reports from Sony had expected supply to ease up by April. House had no new sales figures for the report, but with over 6 million consoles sold before the end of February, and Sony’s fiscal year ending on March 31, we’re likely to hear new figures before long.

Meanwhile, Chris Norden, one of Sony’s senior staff developer support engineers, explained the even greater supply constraints for the PlayStation Camera peripheral at a panel attended by developers and press, including Gamespot. Norden asked for patience while they replenish their stock, while also noting that the camera had an attach rate of 15%–meaning somewhere in the range of 900,000 units sold to customers based on 6 million PS4 sales. Shuhei Yoshida also told reporters that Sony’s marketing team underestimated the demand for one of the features–broadcasting over Twitch and Ustream. “It was a total miscalculation by our marketing guys,” Yoshida told Polygon, also saying “[t]hey came up with the initial demand in that conventional way and it was very, very low. Using the camera to broadcast yourself is much, much more fun they they thought and they didn’t quite get it.”