PS3 stock shortage already?

So news has been hitting the internet of reductions in the already meagre numbers of Playstation 3s that will be available in North America and Japan in November. Kotaku have reported here that Sony’s shipment target of 2 million units to be shipped by the end of 2006 is “more of a target”. Production difficulties with parts for the Blu-Ray drive have been blamed.

News then broke yesterday on Joystiq (here) that the number of consoles available in Japan on launch day has been cut by 20%. There is no word as to whether North America will face a similar 20% cut in consoles available. This follows on the back of the news not so long ago that the Playstation 3 will not be available in Europe until 2007. And given that Sony no longer views importing a console as a viable option (you only have to look at Lik Sang’s fate to see that) and you really have to wonder what Sony are playing at.

Surely they knew that there would be shortages in supply and that they would never meet the demand. But at what point should Sony cut their losses and just move the launch of the console back globally? Microsoft have shown that a launch in the 3 major gaming territories in 2 weeks is possible (and yes I remember how short in supply the 360’s were at launch, but at least they were there). I also have no doubt that Nintendo will manage a global launch with the Wii, and that Wii’s will be available “on the shelf” before Christmas. I guess this will be a big test of Sony’s bullish attitude of “we can do what we want” and that Nintendo and Microsoft are going to share the majority of the Christmas sales…