Sony Computer Entertainment America just announced that more than one million units of its recently launched PlayStation3 (PS3) were shipped to North America retailers. Note that Sony does not claim those units actually sold, just that there were that many systems shipped.

The company said it successfully achieved this milestone by the end of the 2006 calendar year, just as it said it would, though some analysts and industry insiders had predicted Sony would only manage 500,000 - 800,000 due to production problems with its proprietary Blu-ray diode. Sony also noted that it shipped more PlayStation3s than it did PlayStation2s or original PlayStations in the same period.

The PS3 has been selling-out at retail outlets across North America since it launched on November 17, 2006.

"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," said Jack Tretton, president and CEO, SCEA.

The elderly PlayStation 2, meanwhile, continues to enjoy record-breaking sales in North America, due in no small part to Sony's continued support of it, and its freakishly attractive pricing of just $130 (USD and Cdn). By contrast, Microsoft is no longer making games for the original Xbox and The Legend of Zelda: The Twilight Princess is most likely the last GameCube game coming from Nintendo. But within the next couple of months, Sony will release God of War II and MLB 07 The Show for PlayStation2, sating the some 100 million PS2 owners in the world (and counting). By contrast, again, it took Microsoft some four years to sell just 25 million Xboxes worldwide -- only a year and a bit to sell 10 million units of its much more successful Xbox 360 worldwide, about half of those in North America -- and Nintendo only managed to move 24 million GameCubes worldwide during its similar lifespan.