http://games.yahoo.com/blogs/plugged-in/sony-unveils-super-slim-ps3-155940334.html

Gee, I'm so glad they spent time and money doing this... "Hey, it's seven years old; time to pull out our 'let's give it a slimmer look' thing."

I guess I just don't see the point, especially at that price.

and the worse thing is that in 2014 maybe they come with the psx 4.

12 GB. Sony, don't tell us you couldn't find cheaper flash... I bet, you could score some second-hand 4GB or 512MB units.

The point is to make it cheaper to manufacture. There isn't any benefit to consumers.

Well, yeah, I understand the "cheaper to make" thing, but at this point, why even bother? Considering the age of the system, the price, and anticipation for next-gen, it just doesn't seem like a very smart move.

Sony is probably desperate to squeeze as much as they can out of the PS3 after losing all their profit from the PS1 and PS2 years on the thing.

Also 12GB is just sad. The original report I saw showed a 16GB version, so maybe 12GB is how much space is left after formatting and internal usage. Considering a high number of games have install files, 12GB won't go far. Even the basic 360 lets you plug in 2 16GB flash drives to use on it.

Maybe the target market for that model is people that will use their own laptop hard drives to upgrade the system.

if it doesnt sound like a jet taking off.

i hate my fatty (but not its backwards compatibility!)

Doesn't the PS2 continue to sell more units than the PS3? They might as well lower their own costs as much as possible if they intend to continue selling PS3's for the next five years, especially since the price is certain to go down once the PS4 hits.

the PS4 is gonna be a digital download box, much like the highly successful PSP-GO ... SONY is prepping themselves for the PS3 to remain their primary platform for years after the PS4 ships.

gotta love Behemoth like mega corporations that have grown so big that it develops multiple brains so that there is a backup mind at work planing to minimizing damage 4 years down the road because the main brain has stuffed it's self up it's own ass.

So, what features are they taking away this time? I'm still a bit bitter about having the original PS3 slim, the one where they physically removed components and made it effectively useless for playing PS2 games.

Well, I don't know too much, yet, except that they're doing away with the disc "slot" and going with a sliding top-load door, but supposedly the rest of the functioning is going to be the same...

I didn't realize PS4 was going to be mainly a digital thing. Ugh.

new PS3 will mostly look different, major features are that it will come in two models: a 250gb version for $270 and a 500gb version for $300. which is a notable upgrade from the current 160/320gb versions available for the same-ish prices.

there is also talk about game bundles, like uncharted in the small ver and Ass creed 3 in the big, but that is all transient to the actual system ... it's also got a sliding disk drive cover instead of the disk eater style slot drive on the current models, which I guess is cool in a way but hardly system selling to me.

Sony is releasing this at a high price to give themselves room to drop the price after the holidays without taking too much of a cut in the profits, but it will go down in time (plus the base model price being $20 higher than the current base model give incentive to clear out the old version when they are both on the shelf). the new look keeps the system looking fresh for a few more years, but I'd personally just as well pop in a 2tb HD from new egg for about the same price difference ...

That's unfortunate, but not too surprising considering how anti-consumer Sony is. If they're removing the disc slot that's going to make it even easier to decide not to buy it. Which pretty much leaves me with Nintendo as the only console manufacturer that I'm willing to buy from.

I'll have to take a look to see how well that one is shaping up, because a lot of games weren't able to run on the Wii, but that doesn't appear to be as much of an issue with the next gen console.

officially unconfirmed, but it's happening (both with the PS4 and the 720) ... I guess there is room on the list for both systems to offer up both conventional disk-based systems & disk-drive-less Dial-a-Boxs versions at launch, but that would just be to appease the masses and ease the transition with a discontinuation of the hold over system soon after (like how SONY nix-ed the PS2 supporting versions).

just take a look at how MS is trying to sell the Xbox for $99 with a Xbox live contract to see how they are trying to push the mandatory 'net use angle prior to the next system's release.
both of the big boys will be doing it and Nintendo is likely to push downloads over disks (despite it having the option for it) with the Wii U (like how they have been with the DSi and 3DS).

wave of the future man, wave of the future ... it's technological progress and keeping up with consumer demand that is driving this, the fact that it will fuck over used game sales is just an incidental side effect.

We'll see. I know that the Wii does make it hard to move things from console to console, but Nintendo doesn't expect people to buy a new console until they release the next generation, so I forgive them for that.

I'm going to be really pissed if Nintendo goes that way because right now they're the only console manufacturer that I'll buy from. And sometimes I just want to rent a game rather than having to buy it. OK, I often times want to rent rather than buying it just to play through once.