The PLAYSTATION 3's plight to store shelves has been surreal. If you think things have been hard on the consumer end, try making games for it. How bad have things been? For months, we've been hearing reports of Sony's lack of developer support. Worst yet, the company is now apparently running short on developer hardware and leaving everyone in the gray. Our Mole (no, not an Insider, a Mole) dishes:

Sony has run out of PS3 test kits to give to developers. Since the announcement of the European launch being delayed, nobody has any idea what's going to happen with the PS3 port of F.E.A.R... specially since we only have the one PS3. And it's a devkit. In case you haven't seen those things, they sound like giant vacuum cleaners. They're reportedly ridiculously complicated to use, specially when upgrading the firmware. It has just the one controller, and it's not even the proper PS3 one even! It doesn't have those "innovative" changes from the PS3 controller, it's just a Dual Shock 2 with a USB Mini port.

Somewhere in a Twilight Zone-like third dimension, all of this is going off without a hitch, I'm sure. Brian Ashcraft

Eds Note: While this was the opinion of one insider, this has been disproven for the industry at large. Hence, photos such as this floating around.

Although THQ and Sega are currently being praised for their quick embracing of the Wii, you won't see similar praise being leveled at them for their PS3 support. Not because the flesh isn't willing: oh, it is! But Sony's ability to provide PS3 dev kits? Exceedingly weak.

So weak, in fact, that Sega's Simon Jeffrey claims that there will not be very many titles available at the PS3 launch. That's okay — there won't be many consoles either! But the dev kit shortage has also caused THQ to cancel The Sopranos for the PS3... at least for the time being. God knows the PS3 doesn't need a title based on one of television's hottest properties for launch.

It won't be all bleak, though. EA and Activision have their dev kits, and it looks like there'll be fifteen titles available at the PS3 launch. But it's starting to get depressing reporting failure after failure in regards to Sony's handling of the PS3 launch. - Florian Eckhardt

Game Creators Frustrated by Sony [Kikizo]