Sony Spanked For Shafting Europe, Asia

As we reported here on Personal Tech Pipeline March 19, Sony all but shut down shipments of the Sony PlayStation Portable, or PSP, worldwide to maximize shipments to North America for its March 24 launch. It turns out to have been a gross miscalculation.

The company reported yesterday that they've sold 600,000 units in the U.S. during the first week. Unfortunately for Sony, they had planned on selling a million. That means some 400,000 units are gathering dust here while huge demand abroad goes unmet.

Sony nearly shut down PSP sales in Japan, where the gadget had been shipping since December. They pushed the Euro-date back from March to June, forcing the continent's gaming addicts into a desperate black market in hideously expensive Japanese-launguage devices.

How do you say "whoops!" in Japanese?