DESPITE OTHER reports that the PS3 is currently in production with Sony already having received units, Sony Computer Entertainment American president Kaz Hirai has declared that no manufacturing has begun in an interview with gamespot.
Hirai explicitly stated: "We haven't started manufacturing yet. Some of our ops guys were actually just in China, and also in Japan just reviewing the [production] lines and everything else. But they are, again, preparing as we speak to get the manufacturing going. We've not announced and we haven't set really a specific date to say, as of this day we're going to start manufacturing."
Hirai also said to expect shortages of the PS3, something that seems inevitable with the launch of a new console: "We've always talked about shipping 2 million units worldwide within the calendar year. Since we're going with three territories, we haven't really come up with an allocation just yet. But even if you do the simple math you're talking about less than 700,000 units per territory, per major territory, between launch and the end of the year. So even if there was some fluctuation, you give Japan more, you give the US more, what have you, you're going to end up with some shortages."
Manufacturing may have not (or may have, depending on who you listen to) started in full flow, but better news comes regarding Sony's take on the Xbox Live online gaming network. Buried within a preview of Full Auto 2 comes confirmation of the network's status: "we played Full Auto 2'smultiplayer on the actual PlayStation network platform [as opposed to an internal network], so apparently Sony already has its online gaming infrastructure up and running well ahead of the new system's release."
In other PS3 related news, a quick preview of the new interface, which is very similar to the PSP's, can be seen here, along with a comparison between the 20gb and 60gb PS3 SKUs here. µ
