Italy breaks Euro PS3 street date
Posted Mar 21st 2007 11:35AM by Kyle Orland
Filed under: Sony PlayStation 3, Business
You'd think that after waiting for roughly five months longer than the rest of the world, European retailers would be able to wait a couple more days to start selling their one million stockpiled PS3s. Apparently not, though, as an Italian retailer has broken Sony's carefully planned street date, causing a domino effect in other other stores across the country.
GamesIndustry.biz reports that small specialist chain Darty took out ads for a 7 p.m. Wednesday PS3 sale in advance of the official Friday launch. Competitor Media World responded by canceling midnight sales plans and letting its stock loose at 9 a.m. Wednesday morning (or roughly seven and a half hours ago, Italy time, as of this posting). Italy's GameStop stores are currently planning to stick to the street date, but said they might be forced to break it to stay competitive.
Sony, for its part, is "deeply disappointed by the unilateral decision" to launch early and is "carefully consider[ing] all available options in relation to retailers who have commenced sale of PlayStation 3 prior to 23rd March 2007." Unilateral decisions? Retaliation? Is this the console war or the Iraq war?
