February 4, 2005 - Riding the backside of the rollercoaster that was yesterday morning's announcement of the PSP's release and price for North America, news source Bloomberg is reporting that Sony Computer Entertainment Europe has delayed the European release of the PlayStation Portable from the originally planned Q4 2004 release (which would have had the system release this March with the North American system.) Europe will now see the PSP release sometime this Spring.

Sony Computer Entertainment spokesman Kenichi Fukunaga attributes the delay to shortages of the hardware -- the system was notoriously difficult to produce in the quantities SCE originally had hopes for, and its hoped-for PSP launch of three million global units will now officially fall one million short. North America will see one million at launch, Japan has received approximately 800,000 systems since its December 12, 2004 release date.

The European launch has been said to be expected later in 2005 (dating back to a mention in October from SCE at the time of the Japanese launch announcement, but it hasn't confirmed how far back the release before now. There is still no indication how deep into Spring this release will be -- at the very least, however, Europeans will not see the system this March unless they import or travel abroad.