Sony’s No PAL of Mine

Regular PTD readers might remember my little rant about us PAL gamers being treated as second class citizens in the gaming world. Almost as if our humble currency isn’t good enough for these huge multi-national companies.

Well surprise, surprise! Sony has managed to take things to a whole new level. While you Yanks are happily playing Okami on your PS3’s thanks to that system’s much talked about backwards-compatibility, us PAL gamers were first told that there would be a drop down to only 80% of titles being compatible with the PS3’s convoluted architecture. The reason for this change? Because we have a ‘new specification’ for our PS3’s. Wonder if that explains the extra $150 we’re shelling out too?

Now, a few German gamers have managed to get a hold of a retail PS3, and it turns out that not only has this cut in compatible titles firmly occurred, but the likes of Okami and Shadow of the Colossus flatly refuse to work. The latest and greatest PS2 titles not working on our brand spanking new PS3’s? Congratulations Sony, you’ve gone and irritated potential European consumers all over again!

Unsurprisingly the stories of pre-orders being cancelled (which are already well below par if retail stories are to be believed) have hit every gaming site out there, and even made the news on British national radio.

So we are offered a system that doesn’t run everything it promised, with less features, and a hefty price rise over the system you US-based folk have been playing with since last year. Thanks a lot Sony!

Second class citizens all over again.