ps3Breaking news: Sony has issued a press release saying the European launch date for their new PlayStation 3 console has been delayed to March 2007. There are no changes in the US and Japanese launch dates.

This certainly confirms that Sony has some sort of problems with the production of the PlayStation 3. Apparently it is the Blu-ray drives that are stalling the production. From the press release:

The revision of the launch date in the SCEE territories is caused by 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.

They also state that the previous target of 6 million consoles shipped by March 07 has not been changed, which is a bit hard to believe at this point. As if us Europeans don’t have to deal with overpriced consoles and games in the first place, now the PS3 launch is delayed by almost 6 months. How lucky are we?

Official press release

Update 1: After contacting the Sony UK press department, it appears that Europe will get around 1 million consoles at launch in March 2007. In November, the US will have 400k units on launch day, Japan will have 120k units, with weekly shipments of 120k consoles. Total shipments of consoles in 2006 will be around 2-2,5 million.

Tags: Business, PlayStation 3