Biden made it clear that this will not be an immediate solution to the scarcity, but it should help prevent similar problems in the future. The scarcity of semiconductors has caused major problems for the video game industry in recent months, and has been raised by many gaming industry representatives, most recently including PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan.
In an interview with GQ published earlier this week, Ryan said the scarcity of semiconductors was one of the main problems affecting PS5 production – with missing semiconductor chips, it’s complicated for car, phone, console and hardware manufacturers. PCs operate at full capacity and put their products in the hands of consumers. The power of AMD chips in next-generation consoles and CEO Lisa Su raised similar concerns during the company’s fourth quarter 2020 earnings call, predicting the chip shortage will last until the first half of 2021.
With this executive order, the Biden government is planning to assess and, hopefully, remedy these supply chain problems, with a focus on increasing domestic production in the US to mitigate these problems in the future. In addition to the scarcity of chips, scalpers are also causing problems for consumers trying to purchase first-rate graphics cards and next-generation consoles. A potential ban on console scalping is currently gaining momentum in the UK in light of recent market problems.
Jordan Oloman is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow him on Twitter.