Playstation 3 launches worldwide on November 11!

Sony PlayStation 3Wow! The PlayStation 3 is set to launch in North America, Asia and Europe in early November this year, Sony Computer Entertainment boss Ken Kutaragi has announced, with the firm committed to shipping six million units by the end of March 2007.

Kutaragi was speaking at the PlayStation business briefing in Tokyo, where the firm is outlining its plans for the videogames business over the coming year to an audience of media, analysts and third-party publishing partners.

From launch onwards, Sony plans to ship a million units a month of the PlayStation 3 – with six million units to be on the market by the end of its financial year in March 2007, indicating that the company plans to have up to two million units ready for day one.

Scepticism is in order as the November target is likely to be the subject of some speculation for months to come – especially given Sony’s track record with such ambitious worldwide launch targets in the form of the PlayStation Portable, which was originally due to launch globally at the end of 2004, but ended up not arriving in America until the second quarter of 2005, and didn’t launch in Europe until nine months later, at the beginning of September 2005.