Brace yourselves, folks, for the great PS5 shortage may be upon us.

Sources from Bloomberg have reported that Sony might be planning to limit the production output of PS5 consoles. What this means is that far fewer units will be available for purchase when the PS5 eventually launches sometime in 2020’s holiday season.

Sony is planning more limited units for the PS5 because the company expects that the next-gen console’s incredible specs will lead to a higher price at launch. The same sources also claim that the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic has only affected Sony’s upcoming promotional plans for the PS5, but not its production capacity.

According to those involved in the supply chain, the company has informed assembly partners that they would be producing around five to six million units of the PS5 in the fiscal year ending in March 2021. In comparison, the PS4 sold a whopping 7.5 million units in its first two quarters alone.

It seems that game developers are anticipating the PS5’s price to be approximately US$499 to US$549, which fits other recent speculations as well. Sony’s strategy in the near future will apparently be to rely on existing PS4 models as a bridge to attract new users into PlayStation network services like PlayStation Plus and PlayStation Now, while the PS5 remains in limited supply (at the beginning, at least).

That’s not even mentioning the possibility that the PS5 production output could still be negatively affected by COVID-19, whose effects may still linger until the end of the year. Since Sony employees have been working from home, the company’s board has been unable to meet in order to approve any business plans for the current fiscal year, including those for PlayStation.

That meeting was originally slated to take place sometime in March 2020. It’s now the middle of April. As of now, it’s entirely possible for a PS5 shortage to happen when it finally launches, though the sources say that it will almost definitely still release on time, as scheduled.

In the meantime, stay tuned on Kakuchopurei for all the latest news on the PS5, and check out all the latest updates and developments on all things PS5 to date here.