The PlayStation 3 has not had the smoothest of rides to its November 2006 (March 2007 in Europe) launch date. Concerns over the availability of Blu-ray chips and rumors about Cell processor yields have been blamed for the delays that have moved the PS3 back from its original Spring 2006 launch date. Recently, Sony revealed that it will only have 400,000 units available for the North American market at launch and a mere 100,000 machines for Japan at the same time.
Now, Sony is saying that it plans to allocate 80 percent of its US retail PS3s for the $599 "premium" sku, with the remaining 20 percent left for the $499 "core" model. The premium PlayStation 3 comes with a 60 GB hard drive, built-in Bluetooth and 802.11g wireless, and one HDMI output. The core model drops the hard drive capacity to 20 GB, has no HDMI output, and no built-in WiFi.