Following the massive allocation cut for the PlayStation 3 in Japan and the United States, rumour has it that the company would delay the launch of the PlayStation 3 in the European to April or even September, 2007. Sony Computer Entertainment Europe has already denied the possibility and said the company was ready for the roll-out in March.

ComputerAndVideoGames web-site reported that high-ranking sources within the industry had already been tipping April as a more realistic launch window for the PlayStation 3 game console launch in Europe, however, another source of CVG indicated that Sony was likely to delay the console’s launch till September 2007.

The reasons behind the postponement of the launch are claimed to be component shortages, which already made Sony to cancel the PlayStation 3 European roll-out in 2006 and massively cut allocation for the U.S. and domestic markets. It was not revealed which components are short in supply, but earlier Sony confirmed that the main problem of the PS3 console are blue-ray lasers for the Blu-ray disc drive. Additionally, the company already indicated that the target shipments numbers even for the key markets may not be achieved this year. Nevertheless, Sony Computer Entertainment chief said that the company is ready to launch the console in March, about 90 days from now.

“We’re still on schedule to launch PS3 in March throughout the PAL territories. All speculation otherwise is without foundation,” said David Reeves in an interview with GamesIndustry.biz web-site.

According to NPD group, Sony sold 195 thousand PlayStation 3 game consoles throughout November in the U.S., whereas in Japan sales numbers were about 188 thousand, according to Media Create agency. If the numbers are correct, then the combined amount of PlayStation 3 shipped worldwide in November was 383 thousand, less than 500 thousand that Sony promised to make available for the launch. Sony promised earlier this year to ship 2 million PS3 consoles and hit 6 million milestone in March, 2007. It is unclear whether the company manages to achieve its own targets amid shipments for the whole November being lower than the promised amount of game console for the “day one” launches.

Sony PlayStation 3 console is based on the Cell processor developed by IBM, Sony and Toshiba, the RSX graphics chip by Nvidia Corp. and will be equipped with Blu-ray optical disk drive. There are two versions of the PlayStation console available: one is equipped with 20GB hard disk drive and priced at $499, another features 60GB hard drive, card reader and some other improvements and is offered for $599.