Sony Launched PS3 in Europe
The madness has begun, PlayStation 3 was officially launched in old good Europe. London saw the biggest turnout and all those that turned up for the midnight event also got a free HD TV to go with their new console. But in France, Germany and many other places crowds of keen gamers were conspicuous by their absence. In both London and France Microsoft mounted publicity stunts to rub some of the gloss off Sony’s launch events. At the Virgin Megastore in London’s Oxford Street, the software giant handed out chairs to those queuing that had a website address printed on them. In other European nations the response to the launch of the PS3 was more mixed.
In France several stores stayed open until midnight so gamers could pick up a PlayStation but few people took the opportunity to grab one. In Amsterdam only a “handful” of gamers turned up to pick up a console. One of the better attended events seems to have been in Prague in the Czech republic where more than 100 gamers queued for the chance to buy a PS3 soon after midnight. Sony has declared its launch of PlayStation 3 to date a success, saying early sales are faster than those of its predecessor PS2. It believes that the combination of a high-definition Blu-ray DVD player, online capabilities and gaming powered by the Cell processor will convince gamers to spend £425 (599 Euros) on the machine. Now we must all envy Americans who can buy the same item for 60% of European price.
Source: BBC
Comments(28)
The title refers to the microsoft advertising that turned up at some of the events.
Only about 120 at the official ps3 launch in london, no wonder they gave out TV’s if it had been like the Wii launch they would have bankrupted themselves.
Apparently the only really successful launch was in the Czech republic where PS3s sold out.
title fixed – yeah Microsoft edited their XboX 360 website and added a small banner saying “Sony, you are late”. Nice of them.
Chipxero: it probably depends on the amount of PS3 which were available – I can imagine few pieces in Czech Rep and few thousands in London
Apparently the only really successful launch was in the Czech republic where PS3s sold out.
Didn’t the Czech Republic get like only 5 PS3’s??
http://www.shkyw.org/
here is a little flashStream made by micorsoft, or better, its talked falsely that it is made by the producers of the xbox….
The people who go the sweet HDTVs were lucky. It was like the first 100 ppl I believe.
Here’s the publicity stunts by M$:
http://digg.com/gaming_news/Microsoft_NZ_Tease_Sony_With_Beer
http://digg.com/gaming_news/Xbox_Crashes_French_PS3_Launch
Yeah there were about 1000 for all of the Czech Republic but at the official event there were more people than even at the London one. (not many more, but more none the less)
It really just looks like sony hasn’t got a clue, as it shipped far to many to some countries and not enough to ones where the interest is higher.
They over estimated demand and although they wanted spares on the shelves for anyone else that fancied one, but shops seems to have more left over than sold.
almost seems like a bargin when you throw in a free hdtv
otherwise no way in hell am i gonna get one at that price
There’s always people willing to pay full price for bragging rights I guess.
As far as shipping to different countries, Sony must have based it on reservations, buying potential and sales figures from the PS2 launch…at least, that’s what I would have done!
I’m interested to see how the PS3 will do, not just now but in the long term. I almost certainly won’t buy one, I just don’t have the time anymore to play games for more then a couple hours a week. Might get a wii though, don’t care about graphics that much and that new paper mario game and mario galaxies seem like fun games.
how czechs can afford this thing? I had mine a long time, got it eftir found out Euro PS3 has no PS2 emotion chip. fucking sony.
got from USA with emotion chip.
willy: that’s exactly what i was wondering about. i mean, the price of ps3 is approx. one average Czech salary
phuck $ony.
member of both the RIAA and MPAA.
go to hell, that’s where you belong.
you could buy a ps3 off the shelf this afternoon in Scotland, hardly a sell out launch. And lay off the Czech republic, at least he’s not from Romania.
The PS3 is really great, even better, now that we can so easily help fighting diseases by running Folding@Home, just a few clicks to install it!
http://www.joystiq.com/2007/03/15/folding-home-saves-the-world-via-playstation-3-march-23rd/
Rene L
I dont want my ps3 wasting its power conducting medical research, i want it to generate more realistic shadows and trees.
forget an alhzeimer cure, give me pretty leaves.
Here in belgium it wasn’t a great sell-out either.
In my city, there’s a big mega-store who has at this moment about 30 PS3’s in his shop, and the most people don’t even look at it.
I think it’s very overrated, and in 1 week, sony will tell us that it wasn’t as succesfull as they hoped.
(btw, I heard that the blu-ray player isn’t the best there is, they say you can’t play the movies on the highest quality blu-ray supports. In other words: a cheap player)
I’ll stick to my pc, for the few games I play.
ps: sorry for my english if it isn’t that good.
Well it just goes to show u still can,t beat the PC for games.
Trust me I make em
Just 1 more thing this Blu-Ray thing is about to die.
Because who really want,s to replace their DVD Collection with more expensive Disks.
But the question is will more game companies put their games on Blu-Ray Disks. One thing i do know is that we will not.
“Because who really want,s to replace their DVD Collection with more expensive Disks.”
I remember the same thing said about vinyl/tape, tape/cd and of course the same was said about VHS/DVD
people will replace their dvd collection but it wont happen soon. its gonna happen after either blu-ray or hd-dvd loses the war and dies away. it’ll happen when a clear winner is found and at the moment no-one knows who that is gonna be.
[qoute]vasa
March 24th, 2007 | 22:37
willy: that’s exactly what i was wondering about. i mean, the price of ps3 is approx. one average Czech salary
[/qoute]
From which Country are you from?
i´m working every saturday at saturn, a shop here in mid europe and they called me in on friday cause of the ps3 launch .. WHAT A WASTE OF TIME .. we where sitting arround and did nothing ..
.. btw wii is sold out 
xbox has a new package aviable for 349 with games extra controllers and stuff 
)
on friday we sold 80 ps3 and on saturday we sold 40 .. still 80 left
http://www.angry-gamer.net/ag/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=450&Itemid=2
I will just wait for a decent game and then go and buy it.
Right now PS3 has no interesting games and i have my PC which is far more superior in graphics
wow the European version doesn’t have PS2 backward compatibility and at the moment no firmware hack, fuck that console make a place for X360
i101: I’m Czech, currently living in Sweden..
PS3 in Europe does have backward compatibility with the PS2.
Under the new 1.6 firmware to be released on March 22nd, 1,782 of the 2,451 PS2 games released in Europe will work on the PlayStation 3.
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=13208
Gamasutra is a great site for news regarding all game consoles and the PC as well.
A very nice picture and info…..hhhhhh…..Al those people are waiting for PS3!! Thanks for sharing.