SlashGear

As if Sony needed any help to lessen its popularity among the masses, import/export company Lik-Sang has shut its doors for good, blaming Sony’s legal tactics for its demise and calling for angry customers to “blame Sony.” Sony, for their part, basically said that Lik-Sang is being a whiny baby about the whole mess by not showing up in court to contest Sony’s lawsuit:

‘Lik-Sang’ did not contest this case (i.e. they did not turn up and therefore incurred no legal costs). We have been awarded substantial costs against Lik Sang which have not been paid. We would therefore strongly deny that our actions have had anything to do with this website closing, and would suggest that this release is sour grapes on behalf of Lik-Sang.”

So ladies and gentlemen, should you decide that you need to get one of those newfangled PS3 consoles before everyone else, it’s looking like eBay or a bit of luck in obtaining a pre-order are now your only chances.

[via GamePro]

Wow, Sony must really, really hate Europe. Aside from leaving them out of the PlayStation 3 launch party in November due to console shortages, it now appears that Sony is taking extra measures to ensure that European customers don’t get a console before March. Specifically, Lik-Sang, everyone’s favorite import/export experts, will be forbidden to sell imported PS3s based on a ruling that forbids them from selling imported PSP handhelds. While I’m not sure what the legal limitations are on applying a ruling based on one product to a separate item, Sony seems hell-bent on making sure that consoles that don’t meet the European Union’s standards don’t reach European shores. So, unless you have a Stateside or Japanese relative willing to shell out the $500-$600 for you, it appears that Europeans will need to find another way around Sony’s embargo.

[via GamePro]

To update a story we ran on Friday, it appears that the PlayStation 3’s launch date isn’t in question; the console will still launch on November 17th as previously reported. What is in question, however, is exactly how many consoles the world will see by the end of this year. The launch quantities of 400,000 (North America) and 100,000 (Japan) haven’t changed, but recent comments by SCEA co-chairman Jack Tretton seems to say that the 2 million console mark Sony hopes to hit by year’s-end is more of a goal than set in stone.

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Ohhh boy. Just when Sony was beginning to get some positive press over how impressive its console really it, this dandy little blurb pops up over at Bloomberg, basically saying that the date we thought was finalized, November 17, is really just more of a “target,” at least according to SCEA co-chairman Jack Tretton. Decide for yourself what his words really mean, but I would personally warn Sony against irritating its user base any more than it already has. Read the statement after the jump.

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In the gaming world, few events have been anticipated like the launch of the PlayStation 3. Aside from wondering if Sony’s behemoth console is as good as they’d have to believe, gamers are probably also wondering what, exactly, they’ll be receiving in their packages and how many body parts they should have ready to pay for accessories. Well, wonder no more; Sony has informed us as to exactly what will be included in the box and how much a new controller/game/memory card adapter will run you guys.

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