PS3 launch: This was waiting

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We chart the PS3 story from E3 2005 to this week's Euro launch

August 2005
Buying a PS3? May as well hurl that PS2 dancemat in a skip, asold-gen peripheralswill be problematic.Meanwhile the news was that,if we were to believe old-hand developer John 'Quake' Carmack, Sony and Microsoft were just making all this next-gen stuff up.

September 2005
Look at Xbox 360, Sony's Phil Harrisontittered this month, it's got two models! It's all too confusing, said Harrison, before hastily pointing out that this was just his opinion, that's all. Meanwhile, dev 'sources'claimed that PS3 was easier to work with than 360, and it'd be launching in the summer, not spring, as Sony's decision to opt for Blu-ray support became an early scapegoat for the console's predicted high price.

October 2005
PlayStation 3 probably won't be able to play every PS2 game, Sony warned this month. This kicked off a bad period for the Japanese giant as developers began to grumble and considered defecting to Microsoft, afterencountering difficulties while working with PS3's new hardware. Worse was to come, however, as Sony appeared to be planning an online service similar to the internet headache suffered by PS2 gamers. Shudder.

November 2005
A worldwide launch was already looking unlikely in November, when Sony chief Howard Stringer spoke of a March launch for Japan, and Christmas for US - although Europe was predictably left unconsidered. Although that wouldn't matter if Sony were telling the truth about PS3 being totally region free.

Meanwhile Sony was adamant that the controversialboomerang controller was here to stay, and Stringer broke cover once more to hint that PS3 would cost between 300 and 400 dollars.

Ben_Richardson

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.