PS5 Serial number

[Hardware Help]

Does Sony randomly assign Serial numbers for PS5's, or are the in order? Basically asking if I have a PS5 with a serial number of 170000021 and my friend has one with 165000012, mine would be newer and have a newer manufacturing date as the serial number is higher.

 

[USAFRet]

Does Sony randomly assign Serial numbers for PS5's, or are the in order? Basically asking if I have a PS5 with a serial number of 170000021 and my friend has one with 165000012, mine would be newer and have a newer manufacturing date as the serial number is higher.

"serial" generally means in order.
So a higher number would probably have come off the assembly line later.

However, it may not be a linear number sequence.

And this matters why, exactly?

 

[USAFRet]

Looking at that as strictly a serial sequential number....170,000,021
I don't think Sony has made 170 million of these.

 

[Alabalcho]

With that many zeroes I'd say that first three digits denote something else, like "Generation / HW Revision", "Geo Market", etc, and then for each batch of these, starts from zero.

 

[Hardware Help]

I have a friend who has two unopen, and if he opens them they can not be returned. So he is trying to see if he can tell which one is the newer of the two ,with out opening them and looking at the manufacture date on the unit. So one thought was higher number means new unit "ie more recent manufacturing date". Thoughts?

 

[USAFRet]

I have a friend who has two unopen, and if he opens them they can not be returned. So he is trying to see if he can tell which one is the newer of the two ,with out opening them and looking at the manufacture date on the unit. So one thought was higher number means new unit "ie more recent manufacturing date". Thoughts?

Could be anything.

Or even just a difference of one week.
Week 16 vs Week 17.

Or 9 days. "021" vs "012".

Or, 9 spaces down the assembly line, coming off in the same hour.

Or something completely different. Only the manufacturer knows for sure.

 

[Alabalcho]

It could be even different factory / assembly line / morning shift vs evening shift ...

Your friend' logic is flawed on many levels... Being "newer" dpes not always mean "better".

This reminds me an old (Russian) joke telling "Don't by anything made on Monday" 😉