In what may come as a double-shock to many people, Jack Tretton, chief executive of Sony Computer Entertainment America has told news outlets that "April or May is when we feel like we're going to catch up to demand and have product fully in stock across North America and stay there”, he continued, "Our goal is to fill shelves across the United States. Our goal is not to have empty shelves, it's to have full shelves. If we have empty shelves, that's one less consumer who could have bought a PlayStation 3.”

Shock one is, of course, that it’s been widely reported that there are no shortages of PS3 stock in the USA. The Internet has been rife with ‘information’ that stores are packed with boxes of the console – many being returned consoles that scalpers were unable to sell for massive profit. Tretton could, however, be commenting not on shortages actually in store, but a shortfall on the promised number of ‘shipped’ PS3s.

There is often some confusion between ‘shipped’ and ‘sold’ when it comes to industry announcements – both terms when used in the context of inventory can be confused, The consumer thinks ‘shipped’ means sent from the factory to retail, and ‘sold’ means ‘bought at retail’. The industry thinks ‘shipped’ and ‘sold’ are effectively the same – because no one is going to ‘ship’ a unit to retail unless there is purchase order (and therefore a sale) made.

The fact that there are no totally accurate figures for units sold (or unsold) at retail (even the often quoted NDP statistics are based on samples of two thirds of retail outlets in the US), means that the notion of ‘shortage’ depends on your position in the market: manufacturer, retailer, purchaser.

Working on the principle that Tretton is talking about a shortage of PS3s delivered to match the promise of two-million PlayStation 3s to retailers by the end of March, shock two is that Tretton should come out with an April/May deadline.

Commenting on why he thinks there is a shortage of the consoles, Tretton commented, “It's a testament to the fact that we've been able to manufacture and ship units on a greater pace than any previous console. We're in pretty good shape to do that. The early returns are quite favourable”.



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