Online services that track online retailers say that the supply of the PlayStation 3 game console seems to be sufficient to satisfy the demand and from that point of view is better than the Xbox 360 supply a year ago.

Specialists from online track service NotifyWire.com, which tracks online retailers and sends “in stock” alerts to members via email and cell phone text messages, have been surprised at the amount of Sony PlayStation 3 game consoles available online.

“I wasn’t expecting this much volume before Christmas. I think we’re already at the point where many people won’t pay a premium for the console or be forced into buying bundles,” said Ian Drake, the chief of NotifyWire.com.

Usually retailers and online stores bundle game consoles and games to force anxious buyers into higher margin items. However, with the relatively expensive PlayStation 3 system this does not seem to work well. Compared to last year’s Xbox360 release, the PlayStation 3 has been available at more retailers, more often, and for longer periods of time.

“Last year, at NotifyWire.com, we tracked several one thousand dollar Xbox 360 bundles which would sell out in less than two minutes after becoming available. Just today, a one thousand dollar PS3 bundle was in stock at eToys.com for over 12 hours. This sort of thing didn’t happen with the Xbox 360 until well after Christmas,” said Mr. Drake.

While the PlayStation 3 is not readily available from retailers online or off, it looks like level of enthusiasm for the console is moving closer inline with the supply and this is clearly not what the industry was expecting, the online tracking firm believes, noting that this may be an alarming sign for Sony, for whom it is crucial to sell as many PS3 game consoles as possible.

Meanwhile, the sales numbers of the PlayStation 3 are yet to be released for December. Back in November the company sold 195 thousand of the game console in the USA, which is much lower amount than the firm anticipated to supply for the launch day.

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. There are two versions of the PlayStation console available: one is equipped with 20GB hard disk drive and priced at $499, another features 60GB hard drive, card reader and some other improvements and is offered for $599.