Pop Buzz UK

The release date gets closer every day, now being less than 2 months away but that doesn’t stop Sony seeming to want to put even more people off buying their latest console. The Playstation 3 has now got a confirmed and concrete release date of March 23rd, and pre-orders are being accepted all across the board, from main game shops, media outlets and web based comanies such as Amazon.

Unfortunately Sony have put a major foot in it over the last few days by announcing/admitting that the Ps3 that us Europeans get foisted upon us will NOT have full backwards compatability with all Ps2 or Ps1 games. They won’t reveal which games will work or what proportion we should be expecting but that the hardware released in Europe will be different than that in Japan and America. In those territories 98% of all older games work on the new format, but that is guaranteed to be less here. Once again Europe is being short changed by Sony, a real kick in the teeth seeing as we already pay more money than the rest of the world.

The top spec model will cost £420 at launch here, compared with £280 for the xBox 360 and £180 for the Wii. When asked about the reduction in hardware backwards compatibility for Europe, David Reeves, president of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, said in a statement…
“Rather than concentrate on PS2 backwards compatibility, in the future company resources will be increasingly focused on developing new games and entertainment features exclusively for PS3,�
“Games designed for PS3 offer incredible graphics quality, stunning gameplay and massively improved audio and video fidelity that is simply not achievable with PS and PS2 games,� he said.

So us poor saps in Europe have not only waited over a year longer than the original release date, we have to make do with less competent hardware than the rest of the world. Sony seems to be doing everything in their power to make what is already a disastrous launch into something much worse. They could have claimed back some fans and sales in at least the UK if they had made the European launch a smooth one but its not to be.

The only piece of good news is that Sony are lowering the price point for all Ps3 games from the expected £50 down to £40. That’s good BUT it’s still cheaper for a UK gamer to import from eitrher Japan or the US AND there isn’t the months or years to wait for the PAL conversion.

Sony, your time is up, better luck with the Ps4! And I’m not the only one to be saying this, people in forums all over the world are expressing the same emotions and opinions.

Ps3, Playstation, Playstation 3, Sony, Nintendo, Wii, Microsoft, xBox 360, Amazon, Europe, Japan, America, US, Ps2, Ps4