Limited numbers

"We are aware that a select number of titles have compatibility issues but these problems will be fixed with a software upgrade that will be available in the near future," a Sony spokesman told the BBC News website.

Japanese newspaper Sankei has reported that the problems affect about 200 games sold for the original PlayStation and the PlayStation 2. Sony has declined to give numbers.

Games affected are believed to include Gran Turismo and Final Fantasy.

Glitches of this nature are quite common when new consoles are released. Microsoft received complaints about scratched disks when it launched the Xbox, and other consoles have had compatibility issues.

The console is described by the firm as its most important strategic product of this year, and it is intended to go head-to-head with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's upcoming Wii console.

The PlayStation 3 was originally supposed to go on sale in early 2006, but production problems and shortages of key components forced a delay. The European launch of the console has been pushed back to March 2007.

This has also meant that there are only 100,000 consoles for gamers in Japan.

Sony said 400,000 will be available for the US launch on 17 November. Despite the shortages, Sony said it was confident of shipping six million PS3s by the end of March 2007.