I totally missed this one last Friday. Sony had announced that the European (as well as Australian) version of the PS3 was redesigned when compared to the Playstation 3 consoles launched in Japan and in the US. The new PS3’s for the European market will lack the Emotion Chip found in the older PS2 and current US and Japanese PS3 models. Why are they doing this you might ask? As you can imagine, it boils down to costs. It’s cheaper to emulate in software than to embed a dedicated processor inside the PS3. However, the lack of a dedicated Emotion Chip means the European/Australian version of the PS3 will not be anywhere near as backwards compatible with PS2 games as the US and Japanese models. Sony is downplaying backwards compatibility at this time but it sure feels like Europe and Australia are being short changed here.

The new versions of the PS3 for these markets is due to launch on March 23rd.

[Check it out on ExtremeTech]

[Check it out on GameSpot]

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