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Two of the console video gaming industry's biggest companies, Sony Computer Entertainment and Nintendo, both celebrated production milestones over the weekend as the Tokyo Game Show was in full swing.

SCEI, which produces the market-leading PlayStation 2 console, said on Thursday that cumulative shipments of that console reached 40 million units on September 17.

A testament to how popular the console is at present, the announcement meant SCEI has shipped 10 million units since early May this year when it announced cumulative shipments had passed the 30 million mark.

At its present rate, SCEI said the PlayStation 2 is shipping 2.3 times faster than its original PlayStation model. Sony said it has shipped 11 million units in Japan and other Asian markets, 17 million in North America, and 12 million in Europe.

Gekko's Games

At almost the same time one of Sony's top competitors in the console market, Nintendo, was taking delivery of its 10 millionth Gekko processor from IBM, which manufacturers the chip.

The Gekko processor is based on IBM's PowerPC chip and is used at the heart of Nintendo's GameCube console, which was launched first in Japan in September last year.

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