Report: PS3 shortages could hinder God of War III sales

An article over on the L.A. Times suggests that shortages of PS3 consoles at retail could hamper God of War III sales.

According to the paper, recent visits to different Best Buy, GameStop and Target stores over in the West Hollywood area found each lacking the system, as it was sold out.

Apparently, Walmart and Amazon didn't have any available online either.

"It's not ideal, I won't kid you," Sony's Jack Tretton said of the situation. "But I firmly believe we'll get our hardware back in stock and keep selling God of War III for a long time."

The previous two God of War games sold 8 million copies combined for PS2, and Sony is confident that the third installment will sell millions of copies as well, so it's critical that Sony ship more PS3 consoles to retail as games move the most units within the first month of release.

Shortages are due to the price drop last year, along with the "it only does everything" marketing campaign - both of which helped the consoles beat out Wii for the first time in September 2009.

"We ultimately don't make investments on a product-by-product or month-by-month basis, but rather we invest in our platform," Tretton said, explaining Sonny's marketing and support strategy.

"This game will pay off for us with the people who own a PlayStation 3 and the ones who will buy one in the future."

SCEA's communications boss, Patrick Seybold, told us earlier in the month that the shortages would last a bit longer, but Sony is doing everything it can to remedy the situation.

God of War III was released in North America today, and the UK gets it on Friday.