EU Release of Price Cut 40 GB PS3 Confirmed

sinister rouge writes "The BBC has a story confirming a cut price PlayStation 3 with a 40GB hard drive and no backwards compatibility with previous consoles. The console is set to go on sale later this month in Europe, the Middle East, Australia, and New Zealand. No word yet on that particular SKU for the North American market. '[Ray Maguire, head of PlayStation UK,] said: "The people who want to get into new technology early are prepared to pay a premium. We want to get the console to the next level; we have re-engineered the machine to bring the price down. We have invested a lot of money in reaching this price point." Sony is still losing money on each console sold, said Mr Maguire, but would lose less money on the 40GB machine. "We are in an investment phase," he said.'"

Comments

Re:Inaccurate title

[DrXym]

Releasing a crippled device at a lower price is not a "price cut" in any dictionary.

Isn't it? Whereas the PS3 cost 599 at launch, you can now buy it for 399. If BC means so much to you, buy the 60Gb bundle or hang onto your PS2.

What is more, the compatibility was just a software emulator in the European consoles anyway!

No it wasn't. It was software assisted since it still contained a GS chip. And the BC was very good indeed.

but from a marketing point of view, Sony continues to baffle me.

I expect their reasoning is that for the sake of a few periphery features they can deliver a console at a price that makes it very attractive to a great number of people in time for Christmas. If lack of BC bothers you or any other consumer, then buy the 60Gb bundle which is also 100 cheaper.

Sony keeps changing its mind

[rbarreira]

Sony keeps changing its mind... I'm paraphrasing from memory but Sony has said something similar to all the following quotes:

1: Sony: It sucks that the 360 doesn't have full BC

Now Sony releases this model

2: Sony: Rumble is last-gen

Rumble controllers will be launched soon in Japan, and in Spring 2008 in the rest of the world

3: Sony: 360 has too many models, it's ridiculous!

So far I count 4 Playstation models: 60 GB (discontinued in America but still being sold everywhere), 20 GB (discontinued), 80 GB, 40 GB. Also, notice that these models are not necessarily better as disc space increases. For example, the best one is the 60 GB (with full hardware PS2 compatibility)...

Maybe there are more, but at least these three show how unstable the Playstation brand is lately. I'm counting on a big flop (and it's already happening).

Re:Why no backwards compatibility?

[wamerocity]

In case anyone is wondering WHY, here is the official explanation from Ray McGuire, some Sony hotshot:

"As we come to our first Christmas with the PlayStation 3 there's going to be about 65 games in the marketplace, so we feel now that there's sufficient choice in the marketplace and that we're still better off using that money that we'd put into backwards compatibility in either investing in new games or using that money to help support bringing the price down so that people can get into the franchise." (From www.qj.net)

I don't know if I'm in the place to comment on how true this could possibly be, because I have no clue how difficult it is for backwards compatibility programming, because I don't program...at all.

However, if you read the lines and in between them, they are taking engineers away from backwards compatibility, which means that people who still have the SOFTWARE versions of the still BC-enabled PS3's are going to be getting less and less updates for games that still struggle to work, because they are throwing less personnel at it. So, I can truly say that this is one of the first times in History, that the early adopters didn't get screwed (at least from the BC perspective, ignoring the original high price and lack of games for the first year part of that statement....) :)