Harrison declines to confirm March launch date for PS3

Sony Worldwide Studios boss Phil Harrison has declined to offer a guarantee that the PlayStation 3 will hit Europe in March as previously announced.

In an interview with Official PlayStation Magazine, excerpts of which have been published on Sony's "semi-official" Three Speech blog, Harrison said, "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.

"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," he continued.

"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."

In the same interview, when asked if the PS3 browser will let users visit any site and download files, Harrison replied, "No. It has to be done through the store. Although it's built on the same technology as the open Internet browser, it's a special version. That's completely understandable from a DRM point of view. But some streaming sites, such as music on MySpace, will work."

Harrison said he is "delighted" that the PS3 is launching with a stronger first-party software line-up than the PSone, PS2 and PSP, adding, "Bearing in mind that we launched PS2 with Fantavision as a first party title - great game though it is - it's by no means the game on which you would rest an entire format."

He went on to reiterate that the PS3 will launch in North America with Resistance, Genji, NBA and Motorstorm, and revealed that a downloadable demo for F1 will be available from day one.

"That's a pretty compelling line-up," Harrison concluded.