It’s “April”. 😕

In an interview with CNET today, Sony CEO Sir Howard Stringer got asked what goals Sony was seeking to achieve within the next year. He responded:

I think it’s 6 million units by the end of the quarter, worldwide. And then we have got the European launch in April, which is very important to us. I think we have 20 games out there. I assume we’re going to increase the number of games.

Lost in the shuffle is the fact that the current games that are out there are only using about 20 percent to 25 percent of the bandwidth. Once the publishers’ excitement reaches a level of intensity that they start using more of the bandwidth, that will create additional excitement.

Secondly, there now are 1 million Blu-ray players in the market, and each of those in the United States has a Blu-ray disc because we put Talladega Nights inside.

Of course Stringer’s comments are open to some interpretation as he makes a few obvious errors (games consoles don’t have “bandwidth” and Sony only gave out Talladega Nights with the first 500,000 PS3s), but for the main part if one guy is going to know when Europe will recieve the PlayStation 3, it’s him. Stringer also restates that Sony expects the PlayStation 3 to break-even at the end of 2007. Fingers crossed this will mean a price cut will on the cards in the not too distant future.

This (further) delay is really disappointing. Whilst I was becoming resigned to the fact I won’t be able to afford a PlayStation 3 for a good few months, I know a lot of people who will be extremely annoyed. Still it isn’t a complete screw up if the console launches within the first week of April. Here’s hoping, we should now by next Friday at the latest.

CNET- Sony’s brave Sir Howard

UPDATE: SCEE have gone on the record saying that they still stand beside the March date, taking Stringer’s comments as “incorrect”. Furthermore, threespeech indicates again that the date will be 23rd March, and reveals that the prices will stick at £425/€599/€629(Ireland). Hmmmm… I wish Sony would just get on and say.