It was a bizarre announcement, to be sure, but we figured anything was possible given the impending PS3 shortage in Japan. Last month, we reported that Sony had plans to sell vouchers in Japan, used to "guarantee" consumers a PS3 in January. But now, it appears we've got the official word on the matter: Speaking with Nikkei's IT Plus, Sony's PR division has said, "The coupons were a mistake."
The article in question did confirm a 100,000 launch day shipment number, with around a million expected to hit Japanese retail stores by the end of the year. This is worth noting because an earlier report indicated that Sony was forced to cut that 100,000 down to 80,000. Which news is correct? At this point, we'll just have to go with the most recent, so we'll assume Japan is getting the originally revised 100k.
One other interesting aspect of the IT Plus article was regarding Sony's competition this holiday season. Nintendo is set to have 400,000 Wii units available for the Japanese launch, even though it's arriving a few weeks later on December 2.