Though Sony’s Japanese PSP launch seems to be judged a success so far, the major obstacle seems to have been supply rather than demand. Aware of this, Sony has now issued a
formal apology, via its Japanese website, to consumers having trouble locating its handheld.
According to the statement, Sony has been able to deliver a new shipment of PSPs to retail every week since the December 12th launch, but the volume the company's factories can currently produce still isn’t enough to meet the high demand.
Although Sony itself doesn't quote specifics, it seems that around 200,000 PSP launch units were quickly snapped up, as
previously reported, and it was unclear at the time whether Sony would be able to meet their target of 100,000 more units per week.
Immediately following the launch, the company was guessing that they’d be able to deliver another 100,000 units at most before the year’s end, so the working assumption is that there are currently about 300,000 PSPs in circulation. Sony closed the apology with a plea for troubled customers to continue to wait faithfully until the shortage could be resolved.
