It seems that the PSP is plagued by seasonal shortages in Japan, just as the PS2 is in Europe and N. America. While enthusiastic Japanese crowds queued for hours yesterday waiting for Sony's handheld, it appears that many retailers sold out in a matter of hours.
Strangely enough the shortage was expected as Sony had already announced that only 200,000 units would be available for launch day. Most retailers went through their allocated stock in a matter of 1-2 hours and thousands of customers, some of whom had queued overnight, left empty-handed.
Exporters are already making the most of the shortages by asking for over three times the selling price for units shipped outside Japan.
Sony has confirmed that it plans to have shipped a total of 500,000 units by the end of the year, a very small quatity considering that in one day, yesterday, 171,963 PSPs were recorded as sold.
