No matter what the price of the PlayStation 3 is, demand among the hardcore early-adopters is such that it will sell out regardless. What really matters, then, is how much stock Sony is going to have. Now it seems Europeans and Japanese have another concern.

Sony said at the Electronic Entertainment Expo that it would have 2 million PlayStation 3s ready for the launch of the console in November. The plan is to have another 2 million good to go by Christmas and another 2 million by the end of March.

Recent comments from one of the biggest games retailers in the US suggest that Europe and Japan are being sidelined in the early days of the console's life.



"...We're looking at around a million units of PS3 in the US, which is somewhere around half or less than what Sony has said [would ship worldwide]," David Carlson, vice president of games retailer GameStop said in a conference call this week, as reported by Next Generation.

It's testament to the cautious approach many retailers are taking to this launch that even with the lion's share of the early shipments, GameStop is still reluctant to take pre-orders for the PlayStation 3.

Retailers got burned last year when they couldn't fill all the orders they had for Xbox 360s because Microsoft couldn't make them fast enough.