Sony just announced that they wouldn't keep their promise of a simultaneous world-wide release of the Playstation 3. The PS3 is still coming out in the US and Japan in November of this year, but the European release has been delayed to March 2007. Seems I'll need to look for something else to write on my wish list for Santa.
Now Japan and the USA will probably experience shortages too. Instead of 6 million PS3 produced until the end of the year, production problems with the Blu-ray drives will cut that to only 2 million units ready for christmas world-wide. That isn't a whole lot. But still I wonder why in such situations it is always Europe who gets the short end of the stick.
While Europe often is described as being rather staid, it actually grew tremendously over the last decade, due to the fall of the iron curtain. The European Union now has 457 million inhabitants, that is 50% more than the USA. And the EU combined GDP of 12.18 trillion dollars is only marginally inferior than the US GDP of 12.36 trillion. This is not a third-world market where people wouldn't buy expensive entertainment gadgets like a PS3.
On the positive side it might actually be a good idea to buy a PS3 only middle of next year. Due to a shortage of PS3 development kits it seems that the list of games available for the console by christmas will be rather short, as few as 15 launch titles is rumored. And most of those are shooters and action games. Maybe I don't really need a PS3 before Final Fantasy XIII comes out. I'll probably still be busy with the Burning Crusade anyway in the christmas holidays.
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