PS3 worldwide launch scrapped @ Gaming Target

Written by John Scalzo on September 06, 2006

News: System is delayed in Europe and a system shortage will hit US and Japan.

Sony has announced that the planned worldwide launch of the PS3 will not go as planned. The system is still set for a November launch in Japan and North America, but the launch in PAL territories like Europe, Russia, the Middle East, Africa and Australia has been pushed back to March 2007.

The delay has been attributed to a problem in mass producing the blue laser diode the PS3's Blu-Ray drive will need to function.

This delay isn't the only setback hitting the PS3 this morning. The International Herald Tribune talked to PS3 boss Ken Kutaragi about the delay and he revealed there would only be 500,000 PS3s available on day one. For comparison's sake, the Xbox 360 had about 1 million consoles availabale on day one.

Here's the relevant quote from the IHT:

In the U.S., about 400,000 PlayStation 3 machines will be available when they go on sale Nov. 17. About 100,000 will be available on the Nov. 11 Japan launch date.

The one bit of good news to come out of this story is that Sony still plans to have six million PS3s available worldwide at the end of their 2007 fiscal year (AKA March 31, 2007 in real dates). I guess we'll have to wait and see.