NEWS | Welcome To The Third Place

Europe, Australia and New Zealand PS3 Launch Pushed Back to March 2007
Xbox Europe boss Chris Lewis will surely have cracked a smile this morning as he, along with the rest of the world, awoke to the news that Sony has been forced into ordering a humiliating delay of PlayStation 3 in Europe. He perhaps even allowed himself a hearty chuckle.

For when Microsoft embarked upon its audacious global next-generation crusade with Xbox 360 it could scarcely have hoped, nine months after launch, to be in the lofty comfort zone it finds itself in today in Europe.
Advertisement

Acutely aware of the importance of being first to market, Microsoft smashed the traditional hardware launch model in a back-breaking effort to ship to the US, Japan and Europe near-simultaneously. And in the face of intense skepticism it pulled it off. Just.

Last year's launch of Xbox 360 was far from perfect, as any number of shortage-ravaged retailers or empty-handed gamers would have testified. But it launched on time and thus immediately reset consumer and trade expectations of a hardware launch; and, significantly, gave Europe hope that it would no longer be treated as the second-class citizen of the gaming world. For once, the rhetoric rang true.

And 360's unprecedented worldwide roll-out came, lest we forget, hot on the heels of Sony's own clumsily delayed European PSP launch. That Microsoft had therefore changed the rules of engagement became abundantly clear earlier this year as both Nintendo and Sony quickly fell into line, promising grand, effectively copycat, global launch initiatives for Wii and PlayStation 3.

[read more]

Subscribe and get email updates!