Due to all the speculation regarding the low number of PS2 units available for launch, sources have finally revealed the true problem. It's not the DVD drive shortage, the sound chip, the memory cards or just Sony's plan to create demand. The real problem is with the system's Graphics Synthesizer, or rather with the production of this chip. Read on for more details.

The Graphics Synthesizer problems, step by step:
- The PS2 Graphics Synthesizer was previously being produced at the Sony owned plant in Kokubu using a 0.25-micron process. This resulted in a mass production of about 400,000 chips per month.

- For the North American market, Sony decided to switch production to the Nagasaki Semiconductor plant, which would use a 0.18-micron process. Theoretically this would have increased production to about 1,000,000 chips per month.

- An unknown problem at the Nagasaki factory resulted in a high number of unstable chips. Due to this, Sony reduced the mass production to only 500,000 chips per month.

- Unfortunately, the Nagasaki plant wasn't even able to meet even this number, so production shifted back to the Kokubu plant.

- Kokubu plant was faced with a problem: they were only equipped to mass produce the 0.25-micron chips, which did not fit in the North American units.

- Kokubu plant was now required to produce both 0.18-micron and 0.25-micron chips for both the North American market (0.18-micron) and the Japanese one (0.25-micron).

- On top of this problem, Sony had to airlift the finished units from Japan to America in order to meet the October 26th deadline.

So what can we expect in the future? Well, Sony will continue to use the Kokubu plant until all the problems at the Nagasaki plant are worked out. Even with all this going on, Sony is still confident that 10 million units will have shipped world wide by March of 2001.