Sony Pushes Back Euro PSP Launch Again

Back to square one as comments out of France ensure no one outside Sony knows just when the handheld will actually hit Europe.

While Sony Computer Entertainment UK continues to sidestep the issue of when the PSP will be released, a company representative in France has confirmed that the new handheld will not launch in Europe for "several months".

Georges Fornay, president of SCE France, said the delay was necessary so that Sony could produce enough of the handheld to satisfy customer demand, reports GameSpot.

Earlier this year, Kenichi Fukunaga, a spokesman for Sony in Japan, spoke of the difficulties in making PSPs fast enough due to chip shortages. The PSP launched with just 200,000 units in Japan in mid-December. Sony has confirmed that it will have 1 million PSPs ready for the US launch later this month.

The European release date for the PSP has been pushed back once already. Sony's original plan was to release the handheld in Europe, North America and Japan by the end of 2004, but when it became clear that there wouldn't be enough PSPs to go around, the European and North American releases were postponed to March.

Sony announced the launch details for both North America and Japan two months before their respective release dates, leading to speculation that Europeans might not see the PSP until May at the earliest.

The North American version of the PSP goes on sale on 24 March for $249 (£130). Prospective importers should note, however, that while PSP games will not be region encoded, movies from one region will not play on PSPs from other regions. Europe and Japan are in the same region, which is different from that for North America.

Alex Wollenschlaeger
Editor, Kikizo Games