Following the October 26 North American launch of the PlayStation 2 console, Sony promised shipments of 100,000 units every week in order to meet its forecasts of shipping 1.3 million units by year's end and 3 million units by March 2001. Under its schedule, the company expected to have shipped 900,000 units to date, but industry analysts recently claimed in a Bloomberg report that the company has fallen short of those expectations and has shipped less than 700,000 units. However, according to the industry sales tracking service PC Data, Sony is closer to its forecasted shipment schedule than suggested by the Bloomberg report. PC Data informed GameSpot that Sony sold a total of 764,500 units from its October 26 launch through November 18, for US$228 million in total sales. Although actual shipment numbers are not available, the sales numbers suggest that the company is closer to meeting its shipping forecasts than expected.

　　Sony has cited manufacturing problems as the reason behind the short supply of PlayStation 2 consoles in North America and Europe. GameSpot has further learned that the company is also experiencing problems in shipping PS2 units from its manufacturing plants in Japan to the western territories. Sources suggest that the company is seeking charters in countries other than Japan - such as Russian charters - to transport PS2 units to those territories.

　　On a related note, the PS2 set a new North American console sales record when it generated $165 million in sales in its first three days of availability, and it set this record in spite of the fact Sony shipped only 500,000 units at launch. Since the console's release, several PlayStation 2 launch games, including Madden NFL 2001 and Tekken Tag Tournament, have been on the top ten game sales charts.