PS3 Fanboy

[Via press release]

David Reeves, president of SCEE, spoke to MCV. about the console's surprising success. Since its launch in March, the console has sold through more than a million units in the European territories. "Early last week we went through the one million mark on PS3. And we did that in nine and a half weeks," he confirmed. He added, "That was faster than both PS2 and PSOne."

Software sales have been fairly robust, with two million copies of first-party software sold in the region. Although the lineup since launch has been admittedly slim, things will definitely be picking up, with some new products to be unveiled soon: "Our big bangs will be arriving around September and October; Phil [Harrison] will be announcing these at a later date, but they will probably be in the arena of social gaming as well as more traditional games."

[Via Next Gen]

Joystiq got a pretty good e-mail concerning a DVD playback issue. Apparently, the PlayStation 3 in PAL territories has a very difficult time playing any DVDs without giving the owners a big, fat green screen. What's the cause of this? Sony, for starters. See, it seems that on an SDTV, the PS3 can't quite play back DVDs using the AV-Multi/SCART connector. This applies only to European PS3's (I checked mine out before typing this up -- works fine), so we've got to wonder... what's missing? What changed so much to inhibit this standard feature?

Apparently, at GAME stores, they sell a Sony brand RGB cable with a switch that fixes said issue, but it seems kind of ridiculous to have to shell out extra cash for a fix that shouldn't even be a problem. That brings us to the problem at hand: European PS3 owners, this is up to you. Let us know if you're having this issue and how much those Sony cables are at GAME -- if Sony does listen to this website at all (we've gotten a few e-mails from Sony reps about the site, actually!) then maybe they'll look into it a little further and possibly give a good ol' firmware update.

Oh, the problem doesn't exist on HD connections. Just throwing that out there, so make sure you try it on SDTVs only.

[Thanks, John!]

Some UK residents have felt angered by Sony's pricing scheme in the PAL territories. At £425 (~$820 US), European users are paying quite a lot to get a chance to PLAY B3YOND. One reason for the price hike? The government-imposed VAT, which makes up for up to 20% of the cost. "The money doesn't go to Sony," Harrison reminded.

While the availability of a 20GB model would have certainly alleviated some financial pressures on European buyers, it simply wasn't possible: retailers said they only wanted 60GB versions. Considering the numerous retail schemes that have popped up in Europe, color me unsurprised.