14 DAY TRIAL // Sony officials confirmed that the launch date for PlayStation 3 has been delayed in Europe for another incredulous six months. In fact, all PAL territories, including Russia, the Middle East, Africa and Australasia will see the November release moved unto March 17, 2007. Apparently, problems with blue laser diode mass production prevented the delivery of the console's Blu-ray disc drive within the established timeframe, confirming the repeated rumors of component shortages. Sony stated that Japan and North America launch dates remain the same, thus PS3 will hit the shelves on November 11th and November 17th respectively.
Microsoft's Xbox 360 also had its share of problems upon release; therefore, the numbers Sony initially announced were met with skepticism by the public, considering the complex manufacturing process of the next-gen console. Unfortunately, the company is making a bad name for itself due to all the deadlines that were broken. Sony is losing face even more in Europe, since the initial launch date was already delayed from spring until November 2006. Benefiting the PS2 launch experience six years ago, when the console shipped with just a fraction of what was promised, one would expect Sony to learn from its mistakes and actually deliver in full.
In Sony's defense, official PR spokesperson once again stated that the previously announced PlayStation 3 shipment forecast of 6 million units globally within the current fiscal year has not changed. It's still a blur though, since PS3 architect Ken Kutaragi's statements point in another direction: the company hopes to ship 2M units down from 4M by the end of this calendar year. According to MTV News, at most 1.2M of those consoles will be headed to North America, so stock is getting smaller and smaller.