Substantial PS3 delay for Europe, Russia, elsewhere
updated 09:00 am EDT, Wed September 6, 2006
PS3 delayed around world
Sony has officially announced that the PS3 will not ship in PAL regions - Europe, Russia, Africa, Australasia, and the Middle East - until March of 2007. And the reason? Surprise, surprise: "...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 implication, of course, is that even the decision to suspend laser shipments to third-party manufacturers was not enough to meet Sony's production demands. The company says it still intends to ship six million PS3's by 2007, and release of the console is scheduled for November 11th in Japan and November 17th in North America. UPDATE: Ken Kutaragi says there will be 100,000 units in Japan and 400,000 in North America. Combined, that's less than half of what Microsoft offered in its global launch of the 360. UPDATE 2: Sony has halved its expected shipment of consoles to the US and Japan in 2006 from four million to two million.
