PS3 sales in North America beat target

Beating early production blues, the Japanese game giant, Sony Corp., managed to meet its goal of shipping 1 million PlayStation 3 machines to the U.S. in 2006, Jack Tretton, chief executive of Sony Computer Entertainment America disclosed the PlayStation sales figures at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Sunday.

After a diode shortage that hit PlayStation supplies, the company diverted parts meant for its Blu-ray DVD movie players to game consoles, without affecting the Blu-ray player sales, Tretton disclosed.

North America being the largest video game market for Sony, the company airlifted PlayStation 3 systems into North America on a weekly basis. The effort helped Sony reach the 1-million-unit shipment mark for North America faster than it did with previous PlayStation consoles. But company officials promise to make up for the Japan supplies during the year 2007.

Meanwhile, the PlayStation 3 launch in the European market scheduled for March is well on track. "We're equally strong in all three markets. We can't afford to sacrifice any one of them," Tretton said.

The market leader in the $30 billion video game industry, Sony’s PS3 is priced at $600 in the United States retail market. It faces stiff challenge from Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360 and Nintendo Co. Ltd.'s Wii.

Though, Sony delayed its PlayStation 3's U.S. launch slated for early 2006 to November that year, the company claims to meet its worldwide goal to ship 6 million units by March 2007.

Sony has enjoyed an iron grip on the video game console market with its two previous PlayStation models, PlayStation (1994) and PlayStation 2 (2000). The combined units sold for the two models recorded a high of over 200 million units globally.

The world's biggest maker of video-game consoles, Sony is also a leading manufacturer of electronics, video, communications and information technology products for the consumer and professional markets.