Sony should have been the first vendor to provide a Blu-ray player in the Middle East as part of its new PlayStation 3 entertainment system. Now, that will not be the case as the PS3 launch in the PAL territories of Europe, Russia, Middle East, Africa and Australasia has been delayed until March 2007. However, the PS3 will launch in North America on Nov. 17 — as previously scheduled.
An official statement from Sony Gulf lamely explained: “We are naturally disappointed that we will not be able to bring PlayStation 3 to Middle East consumers before the year end,” said Tim Stokes, sales and marketing director, PlayStation Division — Sony Gulf. “Rather than divide the available production across all of our regions evenly, it has been decided that, for the sake of consumers and retail alike, it would be better to delay the launch in one region until March 2007 when sufficient production would be available to conduct a full launch.”
He continued: “In Europe, we have 15 different language versions, the US has just one, in Europe, each of our 104 territories — including the Middle East — has different regulatory, approvals and safety regimes, the US has just one, and the number of consoles required simply to prime the supply chain in Europe and the Middle East is much greater than the number required in the US. For these reasons the decision was a straightforward, albeit a disappointing one. We will be redoubling our efforts to ensure that the Middle East launch will be extra special.”