Although U.S. console imports have increased significantly in recent months, there is still room for improvement.

The November 2020 launch of the PlayStation 5 has been disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic and the resulting stock shortage. The console’s situation isn’t helped by the fact that Sony has increased the price of the console almost everywhere except the U.S., citing inflation. Insider Gaming, citing its sources, claims after the rumoured PlayStation 5 with a detachable Blu-ray drive, Sony is preparing a more robust stock for the next fiscal year, running from April 2023 until March 2024.

Production of this rumoured new model will begin in April and will hit store shelves in September. It doesn’t mean that Sony will be producing three PlayStation 5 versions, as production of the original pair will stop by Christmas 2023. The reasoning? Cheaper production costs. The detachable Blu-ray drive is rumoured to cost $100, the same price gap between the PlayStation 5 Standard Edition and the PlayStation 5 Digital Edition.

Last month, Sony shipped 7.5 million kilograms of hardware to the U.S., significantly increasing from just 1.5 million a year earlier. That didn’t only include the PlayStation 5, but the increase in hardware production is sure to affect the PS5. MST Financial analyst David Gibson backs up this information on Twitter. In August, Sony imported 5 million kilograms, and part of the 7.5 million imports in September will surely go to the stockpile built up for God of War: Ragnarok. He also shared Xbox imports, which showed a similar increase, but the Nintendo figure is not representative, as the Japanese company is not shipping by sea but by air, unlike the other two.

So Sony is starting to fire up the rockets, but is a PlayStation 5 with a detachable Blu-ray drive a good idea? The last time we saw something similar was SEGA with the 32X add-on, which also gave the SEGA Mega Drive/Genesis a minor hardware upgrade.

Source: WCCFTech, WCCFTech