Sony PlayStation 3 for PAL Regions Launch Date Set

by Anton Shilov
01/25/2007 | 08:02 AM

Sony Computer Entertainment Europe on Thursday said that the highly-anticipated PlayStation 3 game console will be launched in PAL regions in late March. However, only the highest-end model will be available initially, which means that far not all youth will be able to obtain one.

Apart from Europe, the third reincarnation of the massively popular PlayStation game console will be released to other PAL regions, including Africa, Australasia and the Middle East. Initially Sony will only sell higher-end version of the console, with 60GB hard disk drive, for €599 ($777) in the most of the markets and for pricing close to that in variety of countries (UK – £425 ($837), Ireland – €629 ($816), Australia – AUD 999.95 ($777), New Zealand – NZ 1199.95 ($840)).

It is interesting to note that the 60GB PAL version of the PlayStation 3 is up to $240 more expensive than the PS3 60GB sold in the U.S. and up to $345 higher than the PlayStation 3 recommended price (¥59 980 or $495) in Japan.

“Following the hugely successful launches of the PlayStation 3 in Japan and North America, we are absolutely delighted to be able to bring significant numbers of PS3 to the SCEE territories. To be able to launch with 30 titles across every genre shows that this is our strongest launch lineup in the history of PlayStation, and is what PlayStation fans in Europe have been crying out for,” said David Reeves, president of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe.

Sony promised to get one million of the PlayStation 3 game consoles on the 23^rd of March to Europe and supply such games as MotorStorm, Resistance: Fall of Man, Tony Hawk’s Project 8, Virtual Fighter 5 and Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 in order to make the console popular already at launch.

The world’s No. 1 maker of game consoles said that after evaluating the PAL market, particularly in Europe, it decided to postpone the release of 20GB version till later during the year due to potentially low demand on the “lite” version of the PS3.

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 in the USA and Japan: 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.