Home Cinema

RSS

NEWS: Sony to launch cut-price PS3

Andy Clough 08 October 2007 09:22

Sony is introducing a cut-price version of its PS3 console for £299 this Wednesday, with a smaller 40GB hard drive and no backwards compatibility with its previous consoles.

It is also slashing the price of the current 60GB model from £425 to £349.

The company denies the move is in response to lower-than-expected sales of the PS3 in Europe, but admits some customers found the initial price too expensive.

The new, cheaper PS3 will be unable to play PlayStation 1 and 2 games, has two USB ports instead of four and no slots for memory cards.

It brings it into line with the price of Microsoft's Xbox 360 Elite, which has a 120GB hard drive but unlike the PS3 does not include a Blu-ray drive.

More than 5.5 million PS3 consoles have been shipped worldwide, compared with more than 10 million each of the Nintendo Wii and Xbox 360.

Technorati Tags: Blu-ray, Nintendo Wii, PS3, Xbox 360

Comments

D.J.KRIME October 8, 2007 10:04

Sony are hardly going to say that this change to the PS3 spec and price is due to poor sales now are they? I think they are extremely worried about the poor sales the PS3 has had in Europe. When the 360 was reliesed you could not get one anywhere for ages and the Wii is still hard to come by, and yet I dont recall seeing any OUT OF STOCK signs for the PS3.

Dan Taylor October 8, 2007 16:58

Erm, might want to check those prices. Everybody else is reporting them at £299 (for the hobbled one) and £349 (for the standard one).

They'll be getting rid of the old 60gb one soon anyway to bring in the 80gb model instead (like the US).

D.J.KRIME October 9, 2007 12:45

Sony only plan to sell the cheeper 40GB model in all SCEE territories with no plans to sell the 80GB model here.

Dan Taylor October 9, 2007 15:47

Yep, and that'll probably last into the new year, when they'll relaunch a new model with larger hard drive ready for the TV tuner add-on we saw a while back.

lusky October 9, 2007 23:24

Does anyone know what sony are taking out of the 40gb machine to remove backwards compatibility? Since they had already removed the hardware to do this in the European model and relied on software updates, why can't the software update give the new model backwards compatibility?

Alantiggger October 16, 2007 17:30

Why is it that (this Sony number included) why is it that we have to pay so much for the exact same items (hifi, tv's etc) which can be bought for so much less in other countries ?

Sony have a bit of a cheek with this 40 GB model surely ? and to have it NOT backwards compatible....what's that about ?

Scar70 October 17, 2007 12:23

Can anyone tell me if the 60 GB version is backward compatible?

Sony need to get this sorted otherwise they will be left behind!!!!!!

Anonymous comments are disabled

About Andy Clough

Andy Clough studied English and French at Leeds University and has been a journalist for 20 years. Andy was editor of What Hi-Fi? Sound and Vision for five years, before launching Home Cinema magazine and editing the Ultimate Guide series. Andy is now Editor of whathifi.com