PS3 Delivers Bad News To Europe - 23.2.07

With the European launch of the PlayStation 3 looming on the horizon, Sony has dropped a bomb fans might not have been expecting.

“The backwards compatibility is not going to be as good as the U.S. and Japan models,” a Sony spokesperson was quoted as saying.

This little tidbit means that many PlayStation 2 titles gamers might be holding onto to play on the PS3 won’t work. It also sounds like Sony doesn’t intend to fix the problem any time soon.

According to X-bit Labs, a Sony statement has made it pretty clear: “Rather than concentrate on PS2 backwards compatibility, in the future, company resources will be increasingly focused on developing new games and entertainment features exclusively for PS3.”

While that’s all fine and well, and new games should be developed for the PS3, gamers were told the console would be backwards compatible. And for the price Sony’s charging for the PS3, they have every right to expect it to be so.

Sony intends to only roll out the 60 GB version at first in Europe. This means the pricing falls in at €599 ($777) in the most of the markets and for pricing close to that in a variety of countries (UK – £425 ($837), Ireland – €629 ($816), Australia – AUD 999.95 ($777), New Zealand – NZ 1199.95 ($840)), according to X-Bit.

If gamers have been banking on having the old titles work, this news might not bode well for Sony.

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Labels: backwards compatibility, PlayStation 3, ps3, sony