Okay, whoever said that this means RSX is G80 upstream. . . we may need to consider one of those cult deprogramming type deals for that person. I mean, c'mon.
For the news in general --ouch. In my mind, the NA launch is now at risk itself. 400k for NA launch, having cut Japan down to 100k? That looks like running the ragged edge to me of absolute minimum, and they haven't started production yet! Anyone who thinks that process is easy, is sadly mistaken. There is a real chance now of only a moderate size problem in production assembly ramping making the November NA launch untenable as well.
500k at launch now, christmas comes 5 weeks into the launch period with half the "christmas buying world population" off the table, but they still expect 6M by end of March? How does that work? There are going to be a couple million fully paid "PS3 vouchers" under christmas trees this year?
Right now, I'd be less surprised to see the NA launch pushed back as well a month or so from now than I would be to see them launch in NA as planned with their 400k predicted units. Can we see them launching with, say 250k units? I just don't see that. Can they politically blow off Japan entirely for NA? I can't see that either.
I'm also wondering if the spring 2007 price cut I was more-or-less expecting is very likely now. I can imagine a whole lot of howling if European early adopters get an immediate price cut when NA early adopters have to pay full boat.
How much all this will matter a year from now, let alone three years from now, is a different question, but more or less "missing" christmas 2006 (and if they haven't technically done so yet, they've given up, oh, 2/3 of the power of "christmas buying" at this point, by taking Europe off the table and having a maximum of 400k for NA) is certainly going to slow them down.
Nintendo, even more than MS, must be dancing in the streets, assuming they can execute.