PlayStation 3 this year?

A delay on final specifications for PS3's super technology is threatening to push back the launch of the next-gen platform, although Sony isn't budging on its spring launch plans.

"We're aiming for spring, but we haven't announced specific regions," a Sony spokeswoman has stated. The company is still waiting for final hardware specifications on key PS3 parts, such as the Blu-ray DVD drive and sound and video inputs, which come from mysterious sounding "industry consortiums."

It's highly likely that PS3 will hit Japan first, followed by the US and Europe, as was the case with PS2 and the original PlayStation. But even if Sony brought PS3 to Japan this spring, we probably wouldn't see a US launch untilSeptember or October- echoing thewait between the Japanese PSP launch in December 2004 and the handheld's first appearance onUS shelves last March.Similarly,UK gamers would be looking at a likely early 2007 launch, though nothing is official at this time.

February 22, 2006

Ben Richardson is a former Staff Writer for Official PlayStation 2 magazine and a former Content Editor of GamesRadar+. In the years since Ben left GR, he has worked as a columnist, communications officer, charity coach, and podcast host – but we still look back to his news stories from time to time, they are a window into a different era of video games.