When the PlayStation 3 releases in Europe on March 23, game fans will get a unique surprise. Certain innards, seen in the Japanese and North American PlayStation 3's will be missing from the European versions.

Specifically, Sony won't be including a PlayStation 2 emotion chip in with the European PlayStation 3s. Which means, simply, the system will have to rely on software for its backward compatibility.

In short: ""The backwards compatibility is not going to be as good as the U.S. and Japan models," a Sony spokesman told Reuters news service.

Ostensibly, the changes were made to reduce the PlayStation 3's manufacturing costs. And the grand savings, passed on to consumers, will be exactly $0. European game fans will be paying roughly as much as their Japanese and American counterparts for a console that's decidedly watered-down.

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