Some people argue that the European video game market is not all that important when it comes to global sales, but I beg to differ. Other than North America and Japan, the European market holds a very strong claim when it comes to worldwide video game sales. Unfortunately, Sony seems to think very little of this market judging by the type of business decisions that the company has made up to today with the PlayStation 3 console. Other than being delayed for over a quarter when compared against Japan and the US launch, European consumers will also be unable to purchase the low end PS3, having to settle instead for the 60GB version that costs a whooping £100 more when compared to the NTSC version. Australia is also out of luck, as Aussies also suffer from the same fate as Europeans.

Just when you think that is bad, more disheartening news follows. Apparently the PS3 that European consumers unpack from the box will be rather crippled when it comes to backwards compatibility. This is pretty sad as the American version already has plenty of problems where backwards compatibility is concerned, so if you live in Europe and pick up a PAL version of the PS3, don’t bet on running all your PS2 titles perfectly.

According to David Reeves, president of SCEE, this limited support is due to the focus that Sony is putting on developing new games and entertainment features exclusively for the PS3. This is due to the fact that Sony could be removing the Emotion Engine (ala PS2 chip) inside the PS3 for Europe. How are our European readers feeling? Will you be picking up a PS3 now after all that Sony has thrown at you?

Source: Playfuls

You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Add to Del.icio.us