David Karraker, Sony's senior director of corporate commmunications, announced that despite the recent cutbacks, the launch will still feature more PS3s than Microsoft's Xbox 360 launch. In a recent interview with IGN, Karraker addresses a comment made by Sony President Ken Katarugi that North America would only see about 400,000 units for the November launch.
"This is just below what we had available at launch for PS2 and is higher than what Microsoft had for Xbox 360. More importantly, in my mind, is that we will have 1 to 1.2 million units available by December 31 in North America."
If these numbers are correct and Sony holds true to Karraker's statements, the "1 to 1.2 million units" would outstrip the X360's sales mark in that time period. Microsoft claims to have sold around 325,000 units at launch and 900,000 units by the end of 2005, so if we see 400,000 PS3s at launch and over a million by the end of this year, that would top Microsoft's numbers.
More shipping info will likely surface as we get closer and closer to the official PS3 launch.