[quote]Sony Computer Entertainment Europe has today smashed the foolishly clung-to dreams of European gamers, announcing that the PlayStation 3 will not hit retail in the continent until March of 2007, with a very basic press release being issued in the past few hours that confirmed what many have suspected for a long, long time.
According to Sony, "The revision of the launch date in the SCEE territories is caused by the delay in the mass production schedule of the blue laser diode within the Sony Group, thus affecting the timely procurement of key components to be utilised in PlayStation 3." The press release, clinically glib and clearly aimed at breaking bad news to Sony's increasingly antsy shareholders in as gentle a way as possible, outlines that the launch dates for Japan and North America remain unchanged at November 11th and November 17th respectively.
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Perhaps the part of the information from Sony likely to irk European gamers, retailers, Sony's shareholders and those with a bent for adhering to basic logic comes at the end of the release. "The previously announced PLAYSTATION 3 shipment forecast of 6 million units globally within the fiscal year ending 2007 is not changed" we are told. Given this shipping target date is essentially the launch date in Europe for PlayStation 3, Sony's forecast seemingly planned for shipping zero units to Europe even before these claimed production issues relegated Europe to third place in the release food chain.
Well, it's not as though they were going to leave Japan or the US waiting was it.
Catch a cracking gallery of the freshest hardware shots from Sony here and remember to vent your fury (or smug satisfaction depending on your geographical luck-factor) in the forum.
Bad news for PS3 fans. Good news for 360 and Wii.
And to think, it was only at e3 that Sony promised a World Wide release.
Wow, this wasn't predictable at all. That's what, 18 months delay?
Now, if only there was a company who had done this before that Sony could learn from... *cough*
EDIT: Come to think of it, this has to be a more serious issue than they're letting on. Sony like limiting stock, we know. A part that isn't available could well aid them, instead of giving them a warehouse full of machines with them trickling out the flow. My guess is that they're scared of the Wii, and don't want to launch against it with a small amount of consoles, when Nintendo have been putting the cnsoles together for at least two months already.
Australia's probably going to get it by December next year.
But I'm not going to get oen anyway, as teh Xbox 360 will have fallen in price, and Xbox 360 > PS3.
I don't really mind about the delay, to be honest. I can't actually get a PS3 until it falls down in price anyway, so it doesn't matter to me.
same here im gonna wait unitll the price goes down
i would have left rep and said that for dark kerby but i cant give im rep at this time
we gonna get our ps3 after 3 more months..argh
i'm waiting sence ever
i collected my money
i upgrude my marks
and i don't wan't all of this fade away!
You should take that money and give up on waiting and buy a Wii and a 360.
...DO IT!!!