In an invite-only CES presentation earlier today SCEA's Peter Dille announced that the company has already shipped over one million PlayStation 3 units into North American retail.

So that’s where those Best Buy PS3 mountains have come from – not legions of irate eBay scalpers returning PS3’s after all!

Initial manufacturing hiccups aside, this makes Playstation 3 the fastest selling home console Sony has ever launched. In comparison Microsoft sold 600,000 360s in the period between their November 2005 launch through to the second week in January.

"SCEA went to great lengths to help meet demand for PS3, including airlifting systems into North America on a weekly basis to ensure a steady stream of units were available to consumers throughout the holiday season," Jack Tretton, president and CEO, SCEA in an official press release.

"The fact that we were able to reach the one-million mark faster than our top-selling platform, the PS2, further validates the strength of the PlayStation brand and our belief that consumers are ready to experience true high-definition gaming."

Tretton added, "Reaching the one million mark for PS3 is the first of many major milestones for us as we head into a new year. Even more impressive, is that we were able to accomplish this feat while successfully managing two other gaming platforms--PS2 and PSP."

At his CES talk, Peter Dille also claimed that Sony hopes to ship 6 million PS3s worldwide by the end of March, when the PS3 will be launching across Europe, Russia, the Middle East, Africa, and Australia/Asia.
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