Sony has been putting a lot of focus on it's 40GB PS3 model lately, discontinuing the 20 and 60 GB models in Japan within the last couple weeks and thus sparking the fear among Western gamers that a similar move will soon be made in the states. It appears our fears may be realized sooner than we thought.
A scan of an internal document, supposedly made by a Best Buy employee, surfaced today stating that Best Buy will no longer be carrying the 80GB version of the PS3 as of January 28th, and assumes that 60GB models will be cleared from the store by that time as well. Leaving only the crippled 40GB model to be sold in stores.
Far be it from me to jump headlong into the thick wilderness of rumorland, I decided to see what confirmation I could get for myself. A brief call to one of my local Best Buy's confirmed my suspicions. A sales rep (who probably realized his mistake about two seconds too late) informed me Best Buy will no longer be receiving 80GB PS3 models and will not be taking any reservations for the stock they currently have. The salesperson did not however, confirm a specific date at which they would cease carrying 80GB models.
Remember that 40GB models of the PS3 have only two usb ports, no memory card readers, and most importantly no backwards compatibility. So while this rumor is only half confirmed for the time being, anyone holding out on picking up a PS3 that also has a feature considered a standard by most, would be advised to go pick one up, soon.
[Via PSXextreme--Thanks, Jonathan]
Contest:
5:19 PM on 01.24.2008
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Glad I bought the 80GB when I did, if this turns out to be true.
I just hope this doesn't end up inflating prices for the 60 and 20 on ebay otherwise I'm never going to end up with one.
I'm happy I got at least an 80GB since the ten that were at the two Best Buys near me sold out the morning I decided to go pick one up.
This better not be true, I'm flat broke and will be for a couple months. =/
Damn holidays (I'm looking at you valentines day, Christmas is cool).
sony knows people want it and too phaze it out completely
would be ridiculous. im betting we will see some sort of announcement of either a ressurection of the 60 or something that has BC in it soon.
Nope, but it's really nice to only have 2 consoles with my flatscreen. I've connected my PS2 to my treadmill so I can watch movies or even play games while I run (has a built-in tv screen).
BC needs to be in PS3, because if PS1 titles are supported and recent PS2 ones are not, it makes their double standard view 'that we aren't bothered by the lack of BC' ever so look bad.
Damn you Sony, how the hell can you create such a shit hot piece of tech like PS3 and then remove such an important and now standard feature of consoles like BC? This is exactly why I'm abstaining from getting a PS3. I don't trust them anymore.
I don't even understand what niche the 80GB was filling: for customers that want a crappy PS2 experience and a larger HDD? This whole model was just a cost ploy on Sony's part.
The system is amazing, if Sony would just calm down and let the developers do that they are gifted at doing: selling systems.
How the heck is that possible when I own more PS3 games than 360 games??!!
Honestly, the worst thing about the 40GB is the lack of two USB ports and the media drives.
I was being sarcastic. Many people care. this is bad if it is true
but glad i bought my 60gb when i did
i love my ps3
but hey I call shinnanagins
marketing people
they got this idea from the burger king discontinued whopper commercial
Or maybe I'm just too positive for my own good.
I'm in the same boat. When I bought a 60gb PS3 I thought the back-compat was incredibly important. A year later, I've played a whopping two PS2 games on it, and one was just for a couple minutes to see how the upscaling made it look. Back-compat turned out to be less important than I thought, at least to me.
Evil Avatar has some more info on the decision and quotes from an interview with Steve Foster of SCEE.
Oh well, I suppose I was planning to save up for a 60GB model off eBay anyways, but still, who gimps the console as the life goes on? Consoles should get more features, if anything.
Sony has been saying they will be dropping parts of the hardcore console to bring back some revenue per console (since we all know their loosing money per console sold) ever since they announced the 80G SKU.
If you ever planned on getting a PS3, now its the time. Don't worry about HDD space, you can get it your self for allot cheaper, cuz I would not be surprised a 120G SKU is on the way to replace the 80G one (Which is shennanigans to me cuz you can get 200HDD for $100, less if you get a newegg coupon :P )
I can see the 60g and 80g SKU becoming rare SKU's going on ebay to $1k+ again for the MOD's that will be happening this coming year.
Honestly, I was shocked and disappointed when Sony announced this new SKU, but it seems to be doing fine for itself. I think there's always the possibility for a firmware update to allow backwards compatibility, and I'm pretty positive sony will do that this year, if not in the next few months.
so this just kills whatever chance I wanted to get a PS3 if they don't add backwards compatibility. Mainly cause It's just so much easier to buy a Japanese PS3 that can play PS2 games minus the swap disc/ mod chip hassle. But this is all cause sony was so confident in thinking they'd be the shit once they broke out last year. Might've been the shit but they still didn't have shit to go along with the console.
oh well I guess. in the end, sony just better hope they can find a stable pair of legs to stand and regain what they had last gen.
If Sony is planning on canning the 80GB model without replacing it, well... that would be phenomenally stupid. Grab some popcorn.