Harrison won't confirm PS3 Europe date

As gamers in Japan and North America line up for the latest Sony console, Phil Harrison has refused to comment on whether the PS3's European March 2007 launch is still official or just a "target."

The self-proclaimed "semi-official Sony blog" at Three Speech has posted what it claims are excerpts from an interview scheduled to be in this month's UK Official PlayStation Magazine with the Sony Worldwide Studios president.

Harrison commented that he thought that he was happy with the launch and soon-after-launch game lineup, calling it "pretty compelling." He also said that the PS3 browser would be a "special version," which would not allow users to visit any Web site and download PS3 content to their console.

He also refused to be drawn on the launch date for Europe. "Given that all of our previous statements about launching in Europe simultaneously with the US and Japan turned out not to be the case, I would not like to make any definitive statements on that," he said. "It's not my job to comment on hardware supply issues other than to say some very smart people are working very hard to catch up. In fact, the ramp up is already starting to happen in supply and output, just obviously too late for us to have launched in Europe at the same times as the US."