We have just-in-time inventory at all levels of the supply chain. China was shutting down highways between major cities and forbidding people to go out on the street in the earlier parts of the pandemic. I'm surprised the ripple effects haven't been worse.

To turn silicon crystals into a PS5 requires multiple steps in the supply chain which, when running smoothly, have multiple steps where people may be planning years in advance.

Sony builds their products out of dozens of components from different suppliers, which themselves may be made out of finished materials provided by other manufacturers, which in turn may be made out of chemicals or raw ingredients from other companies. The dependency tree is quite big, and if any of them are messed up, you can't finish your product.

Normally all of these dependencies are planned well in advance (quarters or years) so that everything is ready when the time comes to ship. Mess it up one level deep, and you're a quarter to a year behind. Mess it up two levels deep and you're two quarters to two years behind.

On top of this, semiconductor production was already stressed to its limits before COVID.