President Joe Biden’s administration signed an executive order pledging to review supply chain problems that led to a shortage of PS5, Xbox Series and graphics cards. As reported by NBC News, President Biden is investigating gaps in America’s supply chains amid the pandemic. The 100-day review will examine vulnerabilities and improvements in supply chains for pharmaceuticals, rare earth minerals, semiconductor chips and large-capacity batteries. He will focus on increasing production in the USA, as well as strengthening ties with exporters of the products involved.
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.
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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.
