US PS3 launch to eclipse 360's

Sony's communications men have inevitably been out and about trying to put a positive spin on yesterday's announcements about PS3.

Just in case you missed it (ha!), the console's been delayed until March 2007 in Europe, the worldwide launch now only covers Japan and North America, and there are only 500,000 units to spread across both - with the US getting the (relatively) vast majority.

That wasn't enough to deflect senior corporate comms man Dave Karraker from his purpose however, as he told IGN that he was quite chuffed with the proposed US launch. "The North American number is just below what we had available at launch for PS2 and is higher than what Microsoft had for Xbox 360," he explained.

"More importantly, in my mind, is that we will have 1 to 1.2 million units available by December 31 in North America. This is more than double what Xbox 360 sold through during the same period (TRST data) and should assure there aren't significant stock dips at retail."

Providing of course you ignore the fact that Microsoft was off selling around half a million 360s in Europe during the same period, Dave. No need to rub in the fact that we're being shelved in favour of beefing up the US numbers.

To be fair, Dave's "confident in our 6 million global projection by the end of our fiscal year," i.e. the end of March 2007. But then Microsoft's confident of hitting 10 million by the end of this calendar year.