Thursday, December 14, 2006

European PS3 launch delayed further?



I have come across a new comment that gives rise to further speculation that Sony will delay the European launch of the PlayStation3 further. Speaking to The Associated Press (via Yahoo), Sony Corp. President Ryoji Chubachi made no mention of the March release date:

Sony also expects to meet its shipment target of 6 million PS3 ready by the end of the fiscal year ending March and will launch its next generation system in Europe as soon as possible, Chubachi said.

In early September, Sony pushed back the European launch from November 17th, naming March 2007 as the new date. Two months later, Phil Harrison declined to confirm that date, speaking to semi-official PlayStation blog Three Speech:

Given that all of our previous statements about launching in Europe simultaneously with the US and Japan turned out not to be the case, I would not like to make any definitive statements on that. It’s not my job to comment on hardware supply issues other than to say some very smart people are working very hard to catch up.

The blog later updated the story, quoting Sony officials as saying that the comments had been taken out of context.

A few days ago, though, Ken Kutaragi was quoted as saying that the European launch may be pushed back until May 2007. Again, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe responded to these fresh rumours, categorically ruling them out.

Now, Chubachi´s comments seem to give further credence to the console´s European launch being delayed beyond March.


I will go out on a limb here and state that Sony will not meet March. They might try to launch nevertheless, but I do not think they can rally more than 100.000 units. In my opinion, it would be wiser to delay again and have a sufficient shipment in place.

Also, consider that these delay rumours mostly came from SCEI, while SCEE did all the debunking. This is Sony Japan shafting Europe once again.

EDIT The good people at CVG are citing an anonymous source as saying that the European PS3 launch may even be delayed until September.

Sources: The Associated Press (via Yahoo), Three Speech

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

great news for mii bad news for sony zealots, i just dont for the life of mii see any reason on earth to back sony, i meen long loadtimes, buggy hardware, poor build qoality, and a decade or more old control pad if that doesnt comput in peoples heads as FAILER then there ether MAD/SONY FANBITCHES/OR DAM IGNORANT.........

wii is fun its fast stabile well made and ticks all the right boxes and theres around 48 wii channels to fill up so theres more to come BRING IT ON

cubeboy101

Anonymous said...

The PS3 right now is a very poor investment. It's costly as a games console and risky as a future gaming console. Developers are not stupid enough to back a horse with 1 leg.

If the install base is small the potential income is small. Just look at console launch game sales figures.

If the price comes down and 3+ million are sold it becomes a smart investment, but the longer they take to reach the 3 million worldwide mark the steeper the uphill struggle becomes.

The arrogance of Sony right now just compounds their problems. THe few consoles they've sold have gone to the hardcore that would have bough tit whatever price.

Now the world has had time to ponder their purchase, they have had months without the PS3 and their lives have not been unbearable, so the thought of spending so much money is now harder.

Consumers are not stupid, ultimately the available PS3's will sell. But when they are readily available what then?

Maybe Sony realises this and are intentionally delaying stock to keep demand higher. I would not be surprised considering recent moves by Sony.

Anonymous said...

All I have to say is that I feel sorry for future European PS3-owners.

Anonymous said...

Who wants to guess that, despite all these problems, there will still be people who buy plane tickets to Europe to stand in line for a console, since they'll be cheaper than on EBay? :P

Anonymous said...

Hey guys, Fal here... I have a confession to make..I'm not really a journalist from Germany. Quite the contrary actually I'm a 13 year old name Derek and I live in Texas













PRESIDENT BUSH FTW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ;)

Anonymous said...

http://threespeech.com/blog/?p=219

Falafelkid said...

Nice try, moron (Hey guys, Fal here...). As most people will already know, it´s not me without the little logo.

Mark Leeming said...

see what I dont understand is how Sonya re saying they will have 1 million PS3s by the end of the year, and 6 million by end of the fiscal year.
Why have the European launch so late?

Damn Sony, I would'nt put it past them to delay the launch till September though.

Anonymous said...

I can buy the being pushed back till May, but not September. If Sony pushed back till May, that would allow them to spend time readying units to actually meet the demand of the US and Japanese market before adding another market to meet the demand of. And Sony may feel that with Nintendo's stumbling for supplies in Europe that they have the time to wait it out.

September would be too long of a wait. Though, it would mean they could probably have around multiple million units ready for Europe's launch and a very nice launch game lineup...and potentially truly meet the demand of US and Japanese gamers.

Whatever Sony does, they better get this supply issue resolved ASAP...because each month that passes without them selling units gives the competition better leverage against them.