Say Goodbye to the High-End PS3

And that means no more of that "less important" backwards compatibility either.

As part of its bevy of announcements on Friday, Sony dropped the price of the current 60 GB model of the PlayStation 3. The existing PS3 Starter Pack is gone and in it's place is a new one with one controller and two games that will sell for £349.

But what wasn't clear from the initial information and was only clarified later is that once all those 60 GB PS3s are sold, they're gone for good.

In a second version of the price-drop announcement, Sony said that the 60 GB model would only remain on sale "while stocks last". And in a statement to Kotaku, a Sony spokesperson confirmed that after they 60 GB model was sold out, which could take a few months "depending on territory", the 40 GB PS3 would be the only version of the hardware on sale.

That's important for would-be PS3 owners still dabbling in PS2 games as Sony has confirmed that the new 40 GB model will not be able to play PS2 games (though it seems that games for the original PlayStation will work), despite ostensibly relying solely on software emulation for backwards compatibility.

When asked for comment, Sony pointed out that the memory card reader and two USB ports missing from the new model of the PS3 could be replaced by USB peripherals. And the hard drive on the PS3 is still user-replaceable.

"The only functionality that is being removed is backwards compatibility - and this is because we believe this less important now than when we launched - as there will be 65 PS3 games available by Christmas. Furthermore we believe we should now be devoting our resources to the future of PlayStation gaming and delivering next generation experiences," the Sony spokesperson said.

Could backwards compatibility be added later, perhaps through a firmware update? Right now that's a question the company is at pains to avoid answering.

The 40 GB PS3 and the new 60 GB PS3 Starter Pack will both go on sale in the UK on 10 October, priced at £299 and £349.

Alex Wollenschlaeger
Editor, Kikizo