![]()
Australian gamers have every right to be annoyed with Sony – not only are we paying more per console than most other territories, recent news indicates that a large portion of your PS2 games won’t work on the new console.
Australian gamers are a feeling somewhat infuriated by Sony – the delayed launch (originally slated for November 17 2006) and the expensive price tag are just two of the issues widely reported. Now reports are emerging that the backwards compatability of the PS3 has been severely limited only to the PAL version, with the US and Japanese models unaffected.
David Reeves of SCEE said,
“The backwards compatibility is not going to be as good as the U.S. and Japan models. Software will take over some of the functionality that was originally taken care of by dedicated chips, which means far fewer PlayStation 2 games can be played on a European PS3 (PAL) compared with the Japanese and American PS3 models which play 98 percent of old games.”
The PS3’s Australian retail price will be $999.95 when it is launched on March 23, while the same games console is sold in Japan for ¥60,000 ($640) and the US for $US599 ($770).
But Sony’s managing director for Australia and New Zealand, Michael Ephraim, defended the significant price differential. He noted that Australians would pay an almost identical price to those in Europe, where the machine is sold for €599 ($1000).
To most casual gamers, backwards compatability is not much of an issue. But for gamers looking to upgrade their current hardware whilst retaining their current games library is a big thing. This recent news has left gamers wondering… do I stay with the old hardware or throw out all my old games? In turn, this can only hurt sales of the yet-to-be released console.
Source:
Kotaku,
SMH
Related Links:
PlayStation Australia: PS3
