Report: Japan launch PS3s cut by 20k

It was said to be "more of a target" than an actual proper figure anyway, so it's perhaps no surprise that Sony has now announced that there will be only 80,000 PlayStation 3s shipping for the Japanese launch date of November 11. In this morning's Nihon Keizai Shimbun (a leading Japanese economic newspaper, also known as the Nikkei), it was reported that the number of PS3s for Japan had been dramatically slashed by one-fifth.

This figure falls some 20,000 units shy of the originally promised 100,000, due to "component shortages." Sony Computer Entertainment America vice president Jack Tretton had previously admitted to Bloomberg, "Clearly we've had production issues."

The Nikkei says that the reduced launch numbers have forced some Japanese retailers to cut preorders for the system short. As an example, the newspaper claims that Tsutaya Online ended preorders after just six minutes, and Amazon Japan ended preorders after 20 minutes.

The PS3's North American launch takes place on November 17, and at least for the moment, the planned launch allocation of 400,000 consoles seems to be unchanged. A Sony spokesperson had not returned requests to comment as of press time.