Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. said that it would not be able to offer gamers two million PlayStation 3 game consoles at the launch date, but will only ship half of a million by that timeframe. The reason for massive volume cuts is the same as those that caused Sony to postpone the PS3 launch in Europe and other regions by months: inability to manufacture enough Blu-ray disc drives.

Media reports cite Ken Kutaragi, the chief of SCEI, as saying that that the company would only be able to ship 400 thousand of PlayStation 3 game consoles to the U.S. and 100 thousand to Japan for the launch in November, 2006. During the whole calendar year 2006 the company aims to ship, according to news reports, two million new-generation consoles, two times less than anticipated.

“The production problem is causing about a one-month delay that will reduce [our] supply capacity by about a million machines from the original plan,” Mr. Kutaragi is reported to have said by International Herald Tribune news-paper.

“We’ve been working hard to try to tackle the problem, but we see the delay is inevitable,” Mr. Kutaragi is quoted as saying.

Early on Wednesday the maker of PlayStation 3 game console said that it would delay the release of its highly-anticipated PlayStation 3 game console to March, 2007 in Europe, Russia, Middle East, Africa and Australasia, as a result of insufficient supply of Blu-ray disc drive components. Still, the firm stressed that it would succeed in shipping 6 million game consoles till March 31, 2007.

“The revision of the launch date in the SCEE territories is caused by the delay in the mass production schedule of the blue laser diode within the Sony Group, thus affecting the timely procurement of key components to be utilised in,” an official statement by the company reads.

Sony PlayStation 3 console is based on the Cell processor developed by IBM, Sony and Toshiba, the RSX graphics chip by Nvidia Corp. and will be equipped with Blu-ray optical disk drive. Depending on the hardware configuration, Sony’s PlayStation 3 will cost $499 or $599.