Sony Japan: NGP to Ship on Time After All?

First it's on, then it's off, and now Sony's end-of-year NGP launch is back on again, according to a Sony Japan spokesperson who says a Bloomberg NGP "delay" story got Sony bigwig Jack Tretton's comments "wrong."

Nikkei reports that Sony Corp doesn't expect its PlayStation Portable successor to be delayed after all, and that plans to stagger the launch were in the offing from the get-go. Also: That Bloomberg misunderstood (or misrepresented) comments by Sony Computer Entertainment America president and CEO Tretton.

"So far we see no impact from the quake on our launch plan," said Sony Computer Entertainment Japan spokesperson Satoshi Fukuoka. "So far" meaning "not out of the woods yet," of course.

My read: Tretton probably meant repercussions from the March 11 Japanese quake/tsunami have the potential to disrupt NGP launch plans (pretty much conventional wisdom, right?) and Bloombeg misread that to mean "could cause Sony to stagger the launch," instead of simply "could impact Sony's existing plans to stagger the launch."

So yes, someone still has to wait. Dutch gaming site NG Gamer reported in February it'll be Europe.