Only 500,000 PS3s shipped this year

Sony will ship just 500,000 to 800,000 PlayStation 3s in North America by the year's end - significantly less than its initial forecast of 1 million - EA CEO Larry Probst has told Reuters.

In comparison Nintendo says that it has managed to sell 600,000 Wii consoles in just is first week on sale, and forecasts 4 million consoles for North American stores by the year's end.

According to Probst EA had set a lower bar for initial PS3 shipments, but "where they ended up was a bit of a surprise. We think they'll get into that range," he told Reuters, and pointed out that console and software sales were typically sluggish to begin with because of low supply.

Probst also made the intriguing claim that 20,000 of the 200,000 shipped launch PS3s were sold on eBay, which when sold is surely enough money to feed the starving children of Africa and still have enough left over to pay for Ken Kutaragi's kitchen extension.