Original story You've got to kind of feel sorry for the Sony marketing guys. Corporate comes to them and says "We're going to be selling a stripped down model because the Wii is kicking our arses, see if you can spin that".
Well, they didnt make the thing any more attractive to me. I mean, why would I want one that wont play my old PS2 games? Silly Sony, tricks are for kids!
I was hoping for a cheaper premium version, and was expecting the current lack of 60gb consoles to be preparing for the launch of the 80gb(or higher) version. PS2 compatability would be a big deal for me - a knock on effect would be that even if they do have more premium consoles, there will be less effort to ensure backwards compatability as not all users would benefit.
I could still throw some hefty future-proofing upgrades onto my PC for less than the price of a PS3. They'll just have to wait until blu-ray hardware is more commonplace to get my money ^_^
Current sales since the change in hardware says otherwise. The PS2 is still selling strongly for hardware as old as it is. Although the move wax mostly cost effective, there was also little sense is packaged the hardware of a strongly selling product into a new one. If they were to do what Nintendo and Microsoft did, I could see the lacking PS2 hardware a minor issue (seriously how many of you were playing PSOne games when the PS2 went into full swing?).
I was this buy the bird in my local game shop, she also thinks that they are going to release another new PS2 (along the same size as the Slimline one) but with an HDD in already.
