The original date was going to be November 17th 2006, the same as North America, but due to shortages on the BluRay laser diode, its pushed to March 2007.
It's obvious that Sony made this move in order to push enough consoles to Japan and North America without being hindered by the mass shortage of diodes. This cancels the idea of a "world wide launch" for Sony.
"The revision of the launch date in the SCEE territories is caused by the delay in the mass production schedule of the blue laser diode within the Sony Group, thus affecting the timely procurement of key components to be utilised in the PlayStation 3"Sony has said this will not impact the shipment forecase of the 6-million units (globally) within their ficsal year ending 2007.
The laser diode issue was past Internet news, we're just now finding out how it impacts Sony's release schedule. Apparently the US and Japan are the largest consumers of the product so it makes sense to keep their launch on schedule.
Sony has had a lot of bad news in the last few months. Although this doesn't impact North America and Japan I am sure it makes consumers worry.
Thanks to TANK for the information
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