Sony Boss Says PS3 Is About to Explode

SCEE boss talks up his new console on the eve of its European debut.

There were around a dozen people waiting in line on Thursday afternoon inside the Virgin Megastore on London's Oxford Street, Sony's official partner for the UK launch of the PlayStation 3 this week. The Sony faithful sat quietly playing their PSPs and DSs as videos of MotorStorm played on the big screen TV beside them. It's probably not as many people as Sony was expecting.

Enthusiasm for the launch, which has been building for months now, was dealt a blow by a police statement earlier this week that advised stores not to host midnight openings for fears of the sort of muggings and robberies that took place in the US last November. Game and HMV heeded the warning, though Virgin will be going ahead with its plans tonight.

Another reason for the low turnout so far is that Sony has worked hard to make it known that it has as many PS3s ready for the official launch on Friday as it needs to satisfy demand. A million consoles are sitting in stores across Europe now. It's presumed around 200,000 or so of those are already in the UK. And Sony is expecting things to get off with a bang.

"I think what it has been is rather like taking a bottle of soda water, and we've shaken it so hard over the last six month that when we take the cork off it's just going to explode," David Reeves, president of PlayStation in Europe, told Reuters this week.

"I think that's a better analogy, a better way of looking at it than to say that the delay has been a disappointment. It's not. It has really been beneficial for us. We're going to get it right."

The months since the launch of the PS3 in the US and Japan have led to speculation of buyer apathy as evidenced by consoles sitting in stores. But Reeves says Sony is doing that in Europe for a reason.

"We don't want secret shoppers to go in there and say, 'Ah, it's not out of stock, therefore it's not selling,'" Reeves said.

He said that Sony was trying to make it so that anyone who wants a PS3 this week would be able to walk into a store and get one.

Alex Wollenschlaeger
Editor, Kikizo