An official from Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCEI) said that Sony’s PlayStation 3 console is in production and that game developers have already received the software development kits with the final hardware of the game machine.

“It’s all going well. We are in full swing, from a developer point of view, and over 10 000 development kits have been shipped. Developers now have final hardware in their hands, though there will be some upgrades to the operating system – there’s nothing unusual about that. The new controller is now in developers’ hands, so all the pieces of the puzzle are there,” said Phil Harrison, who is President, Worldwide Studios at SCEI, in an interview with Guardian.

Earlier it was reported that Asustek Computer had started shipments of PlayStation 3 (PS3) game consoles in small volume in the beginning of July. According to a report, about 200 thousand component sets were shipped to Asus in June, which means that the company was in position to build 200 thousand game consoles. It was also said that in July the Taiwanese builder would receive higher amount of component sets for the PS3, while in September and October the company would get “more than one million [component] sets.

Sony promised to have 2 million PlayStation 3 consoles available during the launch window and ship 4 million PS3s worldwide by the end of 2006. By March 2007 the company plans to supply 6 million game consoles to the market.

The two versions of the PlayStation 3 game consoles – for $499 and $599 – will be launched on 11th of November in Japan and on the 17th of November in Australia, Europe, U.S. and other regions.