Quoting: MJLOVER

I'm pretty sure it's just statistics. Less people in Europe buy consoles, so they up the price in order to balance the number. Not sure if this is how it works, but it's worth a guess. Kind of like those small stores in the corner of the road, cola costs twice as much there because they can't afford putting the price down as much as the big supermarkets do

The US only sold around 3 million more PS2s than Europe, when it comes to Playstation the European hardware market is just as important than the US, more so than in Japan