PlayStation 3 suffers production bottleneck

Sony's CEO Howard Stringer has announced that the PS3 is being purchased faster than it can be made.

In an interview with German news site Welt Online, Stringer said "Consumers are purchasing our PlayStation 3 video games console faster than we can produce them."

"We currently have a production bottleneck with the Playstation 3," he said.

He went on to say ""You also know, however, that our business model is not perfect, and that we make a loss on every console we sell," before commenting on the success of the Wii.

"The Wii is a well-made device that has found a new target group. For a while, we held the same target group with the Singstar karaoke game. But perhaps we neglected to pursue that avenue.

"Not hurting us"

"The major difference lies in the fact that Nintendo makes money with the hardware alone, which may be a superior business model. But the Wii is not succeeding at our expense – it is not hurting us. We decided years ago to build a game console that offers much greater functionality."

While the success of the Wii arguably rests on more than being a bit like Singstar, but Sir Howard's honesty is appreciated.

Welt also asked him when he thought the $3 billion (£1.64 billion) R&D costs of the machine might be recouped. "Not for as long as I live," laughed the 66 year old CEO, "It will certainly take some time."

He also refused to be drawn on the question of a possible PS3 price cut this year, simply replying "I think not". Well, it was worth a try.