News Europe is getting 40GB PlayStation 3

[Da Dego]

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2007/10...laystation_3/1

Sony is launching the previously rumoured 40GB PS3 in Europe - but it won't be backwards compatible with PS2 games.

[cyrilthefish]

If i read that correctly, the EU got shafted by Sony *again*

I'll put money on this new feature-stripped PS3 not getting any cheaper than the current versions UK price too

Sony seems to have the 'middle finger' approach to the EU for the PS3 for some reason...

[AcidJiles]

why would i get a ps3? its still over priced, has hardly any good games and sony are liers

[benjamyn]

£299 for it, I've read on various other sources.

[oasked]

Still no sign of the 80Gb one either.

Hahahaha.

[Bionic-Blob]

why on earth do the console hard drives cost so much? pc hard drives cost around 17.5p to the gigabyte. thats £3.50 for 20gb


'tis madness

[DrFreeze]

is it me or is sony all over the place with their models?

microsoft: two starting models, new revisions only add features (hdmi), and a third high end unit, all providing the same user experience

nintendo: one console, one model(wii anyway, ds is another story), simple

sony: hey people, here are two different models, oh wait, you are european? here is something different, meanwhile we will drop some prices in the us, and then suddenly discontinue that model, and replace it with a different model, whoops, where did that emotion engine go? ah well, well put some software in there, and a bigger, no smaller, no bigger hard drive, i cant remeber, is this the model with or without €100 of pack in locked in games?, we better remove that emulation software though...

i have to admit, im not really keeping track very well, but sony seems determined to ship a PS3 with every single laptop hard drive size known to man, all the while gnawing away at the feature set, which was a sory excuse for what that list used to be, triple gigabit lan anyone?

[devdevil85]

Originally Posted by TheArticle

All in all it's rather sad news for PS3 fans in the UK

Sad? If BC really matters to you, buy a 60GB. I can tell you that my friend has 200+ PS2 titles (and still has his PS2 btw) and the only game he has really wanted to play other than his new games has been the Resident Evil series, other than that there wasn't much of anything that he would want to replay.

Honestly, this is great news: the PS3 is now more affordable and it is still offering everything the 60GB does except 20GB less (if this isn't enough grab a 500GB for cheap on pricewatch.com), backwards compatibility (which like I've said isn't THAT big of a deal, but of course everyone on this forum is going to make it that way), 2 less USB ports (if you need more ports a splitter [up to 127 possible ports per hub port] can be used, but most people won't need more than 2 anyway), and Multi-Memory Card ports. If all of these missing features matter to you, but you don't want to spend the money right now on the 60GB that offers all of these, then I guess you'll have to wait for a price drop on the 60GB models which I wouldn't think to be too far away.

Either way, Sony has listened (sure it may not be the best answer that everyone was wanting, but c'mon) and from what I see, they are trying to make the PS3 available for cheaper and I will atleast give them credit for offering another option.

[Da Dego]

Originally Posted by devdevil85

Sad? If BC really matters to you, buy a 60GB NOW

^^^ Corrected.

Apparently you missed that part, devdevil, where Sony has said that BC is cancelled altogether on upcoming models - but only in the EU. And since it was software emulation anyhow (which was already written), there's not really any decrease in cost to include or not include it.

The new 60GB models will not have backward compatibility. Once they're gone, they're gone. Except for everywhere ELSE in the world.

As for the rest of your post about the USB, HDD and Memcard readers, I'm completely in agreement. But it almost seems like an excuse to save face while dropping the price - those things matter so little and cost so little to the end product, and yet 100 EUD are shaved off? Seems more like "We wanted to cut the price to promote sales, but we told everyone we couldn't in an effort to promote false value - so here's a "new" version!"

[devdevil85]

Brett. At £279.99, what is there to complain about? and like I've said before, I would bet a lot of money that most people that own a BC 60GB PS3 will very rarely play their PS2 games to actually. I know that's completely based on opinion, but seeing it firsthand (3 of my friends own a 60GB and have 200+ PS2 collections), I know that BC isn't a big deal, especially if you still have your old PS2.

Also, why would Sony not allow for BC if "code is already written" like you said? Is it support or what?

[Votey]

Originally Posted by Bionic-Blob

why on earth do the console hard drives cost so much? pc hard drives cost around 17.5p to the gigabyte. thats £3.50 for 20gb

'tis madness

Isn't upgrading the PS3 HDD super-easy? I thought it was a normal HDD interface (maybe I am naive to think that Sony would implement an industry standard interface instead of creating an inferior, propietary one for once in their lives), and swapping out a larger drive was no big production.

On another note, I don't see BC as much of an issue. If you don't want it, don't pay for it and get the 40GB version. If you do want it, buy a used PS2. They're less than the $100 difference between the 60GB and 40GB PS3's, and they don't have any of the hitches, hiccups, and incompatibility lists that inevitably come along with a software-emulated solution.

[Da Dego]

Originally Posted by devdevil85

Brett. At £279.99, what is there to complain about? and like I've said before, I would bet a lot of money that most people that own a BC 60GB PS3 will very rarely play their PS2 games to actually. I know that's completely based on opinion, but seeing it firsthand (3 of my friends own a 60GB and have 200+ PS2 collections), I know that BC isn't a big deal, especially if you still have your old PS2.

Also, why would Sony not allow for BC if "code is already written" like you said? Is it support or what?

I wish I knew. It's just a matter of yet one more promise that has disappeared, I think that's the overall reason for the dissatisfaction. It's like, "Well, the console will do so much! Including this and that," and the "this and that" gets lopped off.

As for the reason for the cut, I would assume it's simply because developing it in software instead of in the chip form is frankly a giant pain - but that's what exists. People may get mad finding out games don't work and say "hey, it's software, why not patch it?" But that's a huge time-sink to get every game running again via emulation.

It really is a shame...it may not SEEM like a big deal, but it really was SUCH a strength with the PS2 - to say it would not be any real deal for the PS3 just goes against history.

[devdevil85]

Well, I guess it would just be best if Sony keeps its mouth shut from now on because people take things way too literally (what's that saying? 'taking gold from a grain of salt'?) and it's like I've learned over the past couple years of selling: If a customer hears you say something wrong upfront, even though they knew it was wrong, they still expect it and if you can't live up to that statement then you are shunned. It also has a lot to do with the internet and forums just like these where people spout off rumors that they heard from a friend of a friend and people want to consider it fact when in reality it isn't. Of course it was Sony itself that dug their own grave by stating something as fact, when of course they couldn't live up to those statements, but being a knowledgable person, you have to see things from a company's perspective: and as big as company's like Sony are, they are bound to mess up and I will only hope that they stop trying to make hype based on future expectations that they know they may not be able to live up to, but rather create hype based on past console success.

[whisperwolf]

You know I remember a time when console manufactures brought out a console and then left it the smeg alone. if all these companies keep releasing new "improved" versions with vastly improved erm.... case colours, then to my mind they all buggered up in the design process. Produce 1 console, if technology permits make it cheaper but stop faffing with what they all can do, and instead concentrate on designing the next gen consoles if you really have to produce another one. If each consoles has several versions how long before games start coming out that only work for gen 2 and later because of an unseen bug, it'll start to get as bad as installing PC games. and yes this includes you mr ninetendo with your ds and ds lite
Sod it I'm off to play on my megadrive

[DougEdey]

Originally Posted by whisperwolf

You know I remember a time when console manufactures brought out a console and then left it the smeg alone. if all these companies keep releasing new "improved" versions with vastly improved erm.... case colours, then to my mind they all buggered up in the design process. Produce 1 console, if technology permits make it cheaper but stop faffing with what they all can do, and instead concentrate on designing the next gen consoles if you really have to produce another one. If each consoles has several versions how long before games start coming out that only work for gen 2 and later because of an unseen bug, it'll start to get as bad as installing PC games. and yes this includes you mr ninetendo with your ds and ds lite
Sod it I'm off to play on my megadrive

[mikeuk2004]

I think people are complaining for the sake of it because its sony. I mean the entire argument was because it was expensive. They have now slashed the price from an original £500 to £280 and all you have lost is a couple of unimportant features. The mem card slots, a couple of USB slots and a few gigs off the hard drive. The BC didnt work 100% so no loss there.

£280 is a great price which is now in competition with the elite and the best part is, it aint going to cost you £120 for a propriety hard drive like the 360 to only end up with 120GB. Instead you can have 500GB and still have change for your bus ride home. Further more you can run linux.

If you really want BC and the 20GB more with card readers then go ahead and spend £425, but you just want to moan.

[devdevil85]

but whisperwolf, they aren't redesigning their consoles from the inside out. All 360 SKUs still have the same Core/GPU design, just like all the PS3 SKUs still have the same Cell/GPU design, right? The only thing I can see as giving developers issues would be the lack of HDD in the 360 Core system, but other than that they are either just adding HDMI support or increasing HDD space, or removing features that are irrelevant to game development like USB ports, memory-card readers (the HDD is there for a reason), etc. But I do see your point. The more revisions, the more confusing for consumers, and a lot of time it will just anger original owners that bought the 1st version w/o all of the added accessories that (opinion) should've been there to begin with, but that's Sony's & MS's problem and they choose to do it for a reason.

This brings up a good question: With all of these revisions, how much will the lifespans of consoles increase?

[sunny_man]

Sony are trying to save face and are failing miserably. I say just take all the PS3s out of Europe and give us the dev version of the PS4. Probably be a lot cheaper and it just might be cooler than the Sun.

[devdevil85]

Originally Posted by sunny_man

Sony are trying to save face and are failing miserably. I say just take all the PS3s out of Europe and give us the dev version of the PS4. Probably be a lot cheaper and it just might be cooler than the Sun.

explain this my friend http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2007/10...ck_in_the_uk/1

[ssj12]

Originally Posted by Da Dego

I wish I knew. It's just a matter of yet one more promise that has disappeared, I think that's the overall reason for the dissatisfaction. It's like, "Well, the console will do so much! Including this and that," and the "this and that" gets lopped off.

As for the reason for the cut, I would assume it's simply because developing it in software instead of in the chip form is frankly a giant pain - but that's what exists. People may get mad finding out games don't work and say "hey, it's software, why not patch it?" But that's a huge time-sink to get every game running again via emulation.

It really is a shame...it may not SEEM like a big deal, but it really was SUCH a strength with the PS2 - to say it would not be any real deal for the PS3 just goes against history.

The reason is because it wasnt pure software. They emulated the EE but the GS w/ ram was still in the hardware. The new console removed the GS w/ ram making it so that they cant run the software they have. Eventually they might have emulation again but they have to recode the whole thing.

This isnt really a bad thing. Truly the US will get the 40GB model soon. Eurasia will probably get the 80GB after the 60GB bundle sells out at the same price the 60 is at. Sony is handling each region a different way so that they can handle each region's differences.