Sony's PS3 Euro PR gets worse

NOT ONLY do EU customers for the PS3 have to put up with a console that is much more expensive than anywhere else in the world, Sony has now admitted it will not work as well either.

EU punters have already had to wait for the release of the PS3 while Sony tried to butter up its American and Japanese customers, only to find that they will have to pay nearly double for the console.

Now it turns out that the European version of PlayStation 3 will play fewer PlayStation 2 video games when it launches on March 23 compared with models launched earlier in Japan and America.

The Euro model will be designed differently from the US and software will take over some of the functionality that was originally taken care of by dedicated chips. Dedicated chips cost a bit more than software so Sony is actually skimping its EU customers despite charging them more.

But the result is that if EU people were hoping that their PS2 games will run on the PS3 you might be out of luck.

So why is Sony being so nasty to its EU client base? There is the small matter of European consumer law which requires gizmos to last nearly twice as long than the US and Japan. In US if a PS3 explodes after a year, the punter has not got a leg to stand on. In Blighty however Sony would have to repair or replace the thing for two years after it was sold.

Sony loses money at first on each PS3 sale due to high production costs and Nobuyuki Oneda, Sony's chief financial officer is determined to make the negative PS3 margin to break even toward the second half of the next business year.

More here. µ