Sony Plays Catch-Up with PS3
The company says its stock issues are resolved and it could still meet its year-end targets.
In North America and Japan, gamers out for a PlayStation 3 are running into the same wall: there's no stock. But that could soon be a thing of the past, as Sony says things are back on track.
Sony president Ryochi Chubachi told Reuters that the component shortages that dealt the launch numbers such a heavy blow have now been taken care of, even going so far as to say the company could hit its initial estimates.
"It is true that it took us sometime to bring the PS3 to mass production as blue laser availability worked as a bottleneck, but production has reached a certain level and judging from that level, 2 million [by the end of the year] and 6 million [by the end of March] are within our reach," Chubachi said.
This will come as little solace to Europeans, who have been forced to play the waiting game in the wake of the production foul-up.
The delay in getting more PlayStation 3s into stores is having repercussions in software sales too. In Japan, where the console launched in mid November, not one PlayStation 3 game made it into the Top 30 of the latest sales chart, which is instead dominated by the Wii and the DS.
Alex Wollenschlaeger
Editor, Kikizo
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