The Sony press conference held earlier this week at E3, while largely full of sales data and statistics did include a few interesting points. A new 80GB PlayStation 3 was confirmed, along with a new Platinum games collection, and some major first-party titles were given release dates.

...all that's well and good, until you realise that they were all confirmed for the US gamers, with no announcements for other areas.

It's okay though, a Sony Computer Entertainment Europe event was held later in the week, where a bunch of PAL representatives were told the good news.

The 80GB PS3 will be arriving in Australia on August 27 (as well as in the UK, New Zealand, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East - with the Russian version appearing two weeks later). While the local price will be announced "soon", it was confirmed that British gamers will have to shell out £299, and €399 in Europe.

SCEE boss David Reeves also explained there would be no European price drop for the PSP or the PS2, but promised some exciting new bundle deals to soften the blow.

The 80GB model has been designed to replace the current 40GB SKU that we currently have in Australia - and, if you'd been hanging out for a cheap PS3, you're outta luck - Reeves has confirmed there will be no price reduction on the 40GB model due to low stock already.

While this is pretty exciting, the presentation wasn't all good news. While Gran Turismo 5 Prologue spin off GT TV is confirmed for PAL regions on August 1st, so petrolheads can watch their racing and motoring shows on their PS3 (no pricing announced yet), this is perhaps the only video download service we'll be seeing any time soon. While the US will be happily downloading and watching television shows and movies, we will be twiddling our thumbs, Reeves explains:

"This will not come to the PAL markets this year, but Sir Howard Stringer has made the commitment that non-games will come to all regions in due course and it will. The dates for video content will come later this year. For us, and I think you appreciate most of you European, that local content is important, and that's what [we are] working on right now.

To try and make things a little bit happier, some good news comes in the form of the Platinum range of PS3 games, confirmed to be hitting PAL territories from August 1. While it's not entirely clear whether 'platinum' relates to a ranking, an age, or an arbitrary decision that "These games are really good", you'll be able to pick up titles like Assassin's Creed, Virtua Tennis 3, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune and both Resistance: Fall of Man and MotorStorm for just AU$49 (NZ$59 in New Zealand, £19.99 in the UK and €29.99 in Europe).

Sure, you say. Those are older games, they just need a sticker on them and they're ready for release here. What about the new titles?


Siren: Blood Curse, MotorStorm: Pacific Rift, LittleBigPlanet
...looks like we're in luck there, too. Killzone 2, Siren: Blood Curse, MotorStorm: Pacific Rift and even LittleBigPlanet are all scheduled to arrive in SCEE territories on the same "day and date" as their US counterparts. God of War III is confirmed to be on track for a release in 2009, too.

When questioned about the Home open beta, Reeves confirmed that it will be launched in "Autumn 2008" (which we assume is our Spring), and there are plenty more details on the way.

I'm sure this isn't the last we'll hear on the topic, but it's a good start, and much better than what many cynics were expecting. As we learn more, we'll share!