PS3 Launch now worse than 360's

Following the European delay, Sony's Ken Kutaragi, say's the North American launch is going to be short on numbers.

The laser diode that's holding back the European launch has found its impact on the North American launch as well. Kutaragi has estimated about 400,000 consoles for the U.S. and 100,000 for Japan.

If you recall, the Xbox 360 launched with roughly 500,000 units and everyone remembers how hard they were to buy in a store, right? Now that frustration will carry over for another launch, only this time, it's in Sony's ballpark. At least we all know what to expect.

Kutaragi also goes on to state that mass production of the console will not start until the end of September and that will result in 2-million consoles worldwide by the end of the calender year. The original number was 4-million but because of the shortage its been cut in half.

This news, coming to us from Gamasutra, will not be good for Sony. However, he did state that Sony will keep its forcast of six million units globally by March 2007.

If the shortage just caused some delays in production it would seem that most of us will find it difficult to get a PlayStation 3 for this holiday, but should find it easy by early next year. This wan't true about the Xbox 360 because people were still having difficulty finding a Premium at the store six months later.

Personally, I find it hard to believe Sony will meet the six-million forcast given the issues they've been up against. Who knows what will happen next? Production of a new product isn't always a cake-walk and they've had a share of issues.

Other news sources say that Sony pushed back the release of some of their BluRay players as well, in order to keep the production of PS3's high enough to meet demand.

Lastly, given the shortage during the Holidays would you be willing to wait until, perhaps March 07, or would you just satisfy some of your desires by picking up a Nintendo Wii and/or the Xbox 360. That gives you 3-months to save up for a PS3 in March...

Thanks to TANK for the information