How easy will it be to buy a PlayStation 3 on 17 November, the day it launches in the UK and the rest of Europe? Tricky, reckons the Official PlayStation Magazine, which expects an initial stock allocation of "in the region of 150,000 units".

Sony hasn't denied the claim, but it did say today, by way of website GamesIndustry.biz, that it has yet to determine how many PS3s will be on store shelves and in online suppliers' warehouses on the big day.

"We have yet to confirm allocation for the UK territory," a company spokesman told the site. "We're on target to ship 2m units globally at launch and 6m units by end of fiscal year [31 March 2007]." ®

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