As you may have seen tonight here, here and here, we’re kicking off this year’s E3 with some big news (and the show hasn’t even started yet).
In short, we’re introducing a new PS3 model with a 80GB hard drive which will include a free copy of MotorStorm, all for the retail price of $599. This 80GB package will be available starting in August, just a few short weeks from today. The larger hard drive will give players more of an opportunity to take advantage of all the downloadable games and trailers on the PLAYSTATION Network, including the content from our forthcoming download service which will include videos, movies and other entertainment content.
In addition, as some of you speculated last week, we confirmed today that we are lowering the price of our current 60GB PS3 by $100, to $499, effective immediately in North America. I know many of you were eager to hear this and we’re thrilled to share this with you now as we head into E3.
Lastly, to keep up with the latest news, you can view a live stream of the official E3 SCEA press conference this Wednesday, July 11th, starting around 11:30 a.m. pacific time. About a half hour before the conference (11 a.m.), click here and we’ll have a live conference feed available.
And if that isn’t enough for you, we’ll have tons of content hitting the PLAYSTATION Store this week, including the SCEA press conference and exclusive first and third party videos and trailers, only available through PLAYSTATION Network. These will be available shortly after the conclusion of the press conference. We want to make sure that you’re getting the info as soon as possible. Rest assured, there is much more to come this week, including the conclusion of our Inside the Developer Studio series, so stay tuned….
Also See
SCEA President & CEO Jack Tretton outlines the details of today’s announcement (YouTube)
In my opinion this won’t solve PS3 low sales situation,the price is still too high. And Sony knows it too, they expect sales just to double but with current sales being so low even doubling them won’t be enough.
So I feel (and hope) that this is just a summer move to revive sales a bit during the slow summer months but Sony will be more aggressive with pricing with further cuts during the holyday season. Great games are coming but they must have a 399$ SKU our by the end of this year.
So you’ve dropped the price. What about us loyal fans who purchased the system, the 60 GB model, 8 months ago at launch? I have to say I’m quite offended.
Sure, I’m an early adopter as are plenty of others, but why should we be the ones who lose out on $100 (plus tax) because your system is selling like ice to Eskimos? And another reason I find it offensive is this is the first console to receive a price drop in less than a year. Heck, generally the price drop occurs 18+ months after launch which is why I felt justified in my expense. Actually, I think Sega dropped the price of the Saturn less than a year after launch, and look at where they are now; right where Sony was in the early 90s, a developer with no console of their own. Perhaps this is the way Sony will be headed with the way things are going this generation?
I think you should look into offering a free game or something to those that can prove they purchased their system in the last 8 months.
Those feeling hurt because of the price drop because they bought the console at launch are really shortsighted people.
Your so called ‘investement’ has a meaning if the console is successful for many years just like the PS2, if it flops badly on the market because the price is out of market you will have wasted not just the 100$ of today’s price cut but 600$.You should be happy that Sony is really trying to improve the success of the product you have bought.
This has got to be one of the silliest decisions on Sony’s part.
People are going to see the exact same two figures that were staring at them to begin with.
Has anyone forgotten to mention that it’s still $500?!?!? Holy cow! That’s insane.
Don’t fool yourselves too hard now, but if you’re going to compete with the Wii, you’ll have to compete with the Wii’s price. Being over double the price doesn’t help your case much. Especially considering that Nintendo could turn around and make the Wii cheaper still.
As well, the PSN does seem very much overrated and if my PSP is any indicator of the completely outdated and abandoned commitment Sony online content is, I’m 100% turned off.
Don’t claim that “well we have demos of the latest sports game”. There’s 5 or 6 demos of garbage games because your developers are lazy and can’t be bothered to produce demos.
I’d love to see more demos of games I actually want to play.
I guess the dirty secret is that 90% of games produced for a Sony system are trash. Which is probably reason #2 you’ll have to look at to get the PS3 out there.
People say that the price is wrong.. well 499/599 isn’t bad.. if the iphone can move units by the millions at 499/599, then the PS3 should be able to do the same. The PS3 needs to be positioned as a must have product, and that’s done by having a slew of great games, and some exclusive ‘must have’ titles.
@ 499, Sony needs to make sure that consumers understand the value that they’re getting, show commercials with the PS3 in the living room – show the ps3 web browser, show families watching movies together, then playing games together, show people using the ps3 to show off photos… SHOW what the PS3 can do… iphone is 499/599 selling like hotcakes, and its only worth 200, while people say the ps3 is overpriced, when it actually has a full 600 dollars worth of features.
I have no problem with the price drop, lets do the math, $100 dollars over 7 months, that it is like 14 dollars WOW that is a lot money! NOT! I have had a great time with the system a lot more then 14$ dollars worth. Also for the PSP users and ATT high speed 3 and 6 DSL users you can now go into a barnes and nobles and MC Donald’s and use the WIFI for FREE!! so got a PSP and want to talk to your PS3, it is now free, if you have high speed DSL that is……
Are you guys used to get refunds when cars, clothes, food, etc. are discounted after a while?
I understand that it sucks if one bought something a couple of days ago just to find out a coupla days later that it’s half price. But that’s actually how things work.
If companies were to take the customers who bought the product before the discount they could never discount or lower price on anything.
This should be easy to comprehend, you have to be pretty blind and your head has to be pretty hard not to get this.
Thanks for all the comments. Glad we were finally able to share this news.
Please bear with us this week on responses, as we are all at E3, starting this morning, so we’ll be checking the comments and responding as often as we can.
WOooooooooooooooo HOoooooooooooooooooo
The PSP2 is nearly here!
Watch this space! or go to E3 and you will see.
Thanks Sony for dropping the price, I still can’t get one yet, it’s either the rent or a new PS3 while on the street staring at the wall pretending I’m having a good time, so, the rent it is.
the fact that you don’t include a
I wonder if it will be called the PSP SLIM or just the PSP2 hmm
what happened to my post… let’s try again
the fact that you don’t include a hd cable that cost $10 or less with your $500-600 hd console is far more offensive than the price itself.
i won’t buy a ps3 until you do.
Sony guys I think that you must rethink your moves, the price cut it’s nice but I thing that it could be better if you cut it $100 more, and by the way I think that you must put attention to the Mexican consumers because I think that it’s a great Market and you can sell the PS3 very well here in Mexico!!!
Greating!!!
Excellent news. I disagree that the new model will confuse people. The differences between the 20gb and 60gb were much more than just a bigger hard drive. If the hard drive would have been the only difference, I would have bought the 20gb. Consumers (at least the demographic interested in the PS3) are smarter shoppers than you think.
whats a sku
@Everyone complaining about the red light thing
No, it’s not False advertising; the developer boxes do it but not the mass produced. Promotional pictures are made with prototype units, b/c it’s already built. If you’re trying to advertise for a new car, you would have to produce them first in order to advertise them coming out. Meaning you’d have to delay the launch.
@Everyone complaining about 599 w/ game
Assuming all of the cables and junk are the same, it’s actually a better deal if you’re a first time buyer to buy the larger hdd if you’re going to use it. As someone pointed out, it’s $107 to buy a 160gb 2.5″ harddrive. It’s probably like $70 retail to get a 80gb. So if you bought an older PS3, adding the $70 retail for the hdd and the retail price of the game, it works out cheaper.
@Everyone who bought an “old” PS3 and is complaining
Grow up; you were the first to adopt the hardware. Kudos to you. Everyone knows the price of hardware drops after it has been released a while, and there are less glitches. I mean look at the new Xbox360s, they’re getting upgrades to stop the red ring of light problem. The original PS2 had it’s problems also. They eventually moved to make a slimline PS2, which cannot support the hdd, so you can’t play FFXI on it (see the EE chip problem). To cut costs they sacrifice components they don’t think everyone needs, and at the same time they’ll cut the price to encourage buying.
I for one am going out to buy a 60gb PS3 b/c I don’t believe I will use all 60gb. So what, you dl’d a movie and it’s taking up room. Delete it. Or, if you really want to save it, I’m pretty sure you can get an external harddrive and move files to it (not sure though, don’t own either).
that is kool but i already have a ps3 and motorstorm. What i want is that you can store downloads from PSN Store to an external drive and play it that way.
Ok if anyone reads this let me know.
This information is no where online which is dumb, but that’s ok I guess…. This is what I compiled about different model numbers for the PS3
CECH +
A – 60 GB w/EE+GS – confirmed
B – 20 GB w/EE+GS – confirmed
C – 60 GB w/o EE+GS – confirmed
D – 20 GB w/o EE+GS – ?
E – 80 GB w/EE+GS – ?
00 Japan
01 North America
02 Australia/New Zealand
03 UK/Ireland
04 Europe
05 Korea
08 Russia/India
Now these were just compiled by me and I haven’t popped any systems to look for the EE+GS chips. Which model are these new ones? They should be a CECHE01 (the only current Es are 05), but they might have removed the EE+GS making a CECHF01? They also might have snuck out the EE+GS from the As without telling anyone…
I would love some assurance that a CECHA does have the EE+GS… Right now I would buy a PS3 as a shiny PS2 only *shrugs*
[…] New PS3, New Price Drop& More News ComingB As you may have seen tonight here, here and here, we re kicking off this year s E3 with some big news (and the show hasn t even started yet). In short, we re introducing a new PS3 model with a 80GB hard drive which will include a free… […]
The PR team must be relieved to finally be getting some well deserved good press.
what is EE+GS
Early adopters, such as myself, need not worry.
All of those memory card slots can be used to easily make up for 20GB if that’s bugging you.
Or, as many have suggested, you can upgrade your HDD on your own.
Sometimes there’s nothing like being 1st !
I have had some fun since I bought my PS3 in May, but 2 months later I could have saved $100 – that sucks. I don’t understand a price cut. Sony is already losing money. I don’t think a price cut is a good sign. It sounds like more panic than anything. They have to lose even more money to attract anyone to the system. Just get us the games that make people want to buy the system!
I honestly hope that this price drop doesn’t mean more losses for Sony, and that it is not a gesture of despair.
Just hope that manufacturing costs really gone down to justify it.
I think that instead of complaining on how the new 80gb model isn’t worth it. We should be happy seeing how the reduced in price 60gb model will be an awsome deal now. It is a much better bargain than the other company’s “elite” model.
The 60gb model is the one that people wanted to get originally, but some could not afford, now that it is reduced a full $100, some people are much closer to that price range.
Personaly I don’t think the 80gb is really worth it. Sony should at least also include and HDMI cable in that model to justify the extra $100. Not just Motorstorm and 20gb. Since the purpose of the extra space will be for downloading media and could be seen in full HD 1080p.
Also it would be nice if Sony could also include AT LEAST component cables in the 60gb, to get the gamer up & set for HD gaming. Not having to force him/her to still go out and buy and extra set of cables. Along with some composites of course.
Well, just my two cents.
I think the reason the 60g will sell where the 20g did not is because people don’t care about harddrive space nearly as much as they care about feature sets.
I didn’t buy a 20g because it had no wireless.
I don’t remember all the differences, but that was the big one for me. I think the 60g will do fine since it has the same feature set, just a smaller harddrive. I’m more worried for the 80g one, but the game bundle does make it appealing to the casual buyer.
And yes, some people do buy game consoles, even expensive ones, casually. All it takes is some free time browsing in a store and a smooth talking salesperson.
EE+GS = Emotion Engine + Graphics Synthesizer. it’s the single chip that Sony eventually put in the PS2 to reduce cost as they unified the design from two chips to one.
IT IS NOT IN THE NEW 80 GB MODEL!
On the side of the box reads: “This product has limited backward compatibility with PlayStation and PlayStation2 format software.”
http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=757875987&size=o
ARGH! CECHF01 FTW
Well it looks like the early adopters of the PSP will have something to complain about after E3…….muahahahahahahaha
@ slerch666
Sony isn’t the first one to drop the price after a year. When PS1 came out, its price dropped in just under a year. The Xbox was launched around the same time as PS3 (back in 2001), and it got a price drop in May (by $100). In the electronics industry, prices always drop. You don’t here those who bought a HDTV a while ago complaining that they should get some compensation because they bought an HDTV at full price. There were people who bought a blu-ray player a year ago for $1k, and now they can get it for half the price. I guarantee iPhone will be half the price soon.
The emotion engine isnt in the 80gb model? I have a 60gb ps3 and just the look of the box makes me buy another one. Sony is smart that the dropped the price before realsing the new model, I expect the ps3 to easily sell better than the 360, but sony needs to drop the price WW in order to sell alot more consoles during the holidays, it is a smart move though.
I’m glad to see that more people will be able to afford a PS3 for x-mas and boost our installed user base…
I guess i’m just seeing all my money fly out the door..with statagies like this, don’t be surprised if at the launch of the PS4 nobody buys it right away, we’ll all be waiting for the better bundles that are invariably going to come…
good luck at E3!!!!
@Early Adopters:
We’re called early adopters for a reason. We buy it early. What? Did you think the PS3 was never going to drop in price? Did you cry like this when the PS2 dropped in price? Sheesh people. PS2 dropped in price 8 months into it’s life. Guess what? PS3 just dropped in price 8 months into it’s life.
Stop making yourselves look bad on this thing. =(
I wanted to comment on this last night when the official news broke, but my PS3 browser couldn’t actually log in.. get this fixed please! Kind of embarrasing if we can’t log in to comment from the PS3 on the PS Blog.
Anyways.. if I didn’t already have a PS3 and Motorstorm, I’d buy the 80gb Motorstorm bundle. That’s a no brainer. 20 extra gigs does mean a lot for downloading media.. My TiVo has that much in it I believe. Did I read downloadable MOVIES?? Nice. Can’t wait, though I may need a HDD replacement soon on my 60gb.
To the people on the fence… Sony gives you two options here vs. just 1. Choice is good. If you were planning on spending $600 anyway you go for the bundle, or if you are a little money challenged, now you get the $100 off on the 60gb. Less complaints please!
This should increase sales some. Now all you guys need is the AAA games. Some exclusives wouldn’t hurt. Good Job Sony this is a step in the right direction.
yea…. another thing.. Where are the demos. According to some, a certain other console is getting the demos for their games at e3, through download. Why are we not getting the same treatment?
I guess its ok that there r the 2 options but at the same time is 20 extra gigs and a game worth $100 more i really don’t think so, the 360 went from 20 gigs to 120 that was a big difference but i really don’t think a extra 20 gigs and a game u may or may not want is worth the extra 100, and i won’t be suprised if the media still says the ps3 never really got a price drop but just a new model. i really hope this works out b/c i am a big playstaion supporter but it seems to be that they are not going in the right direction people want to buy the ps3 for less and they want the higher model for that price not the other one, but i hope i’m wrong and both models sell really well so we can get more thrid party developers making the ps3 the lead sku instead of the 360 and making new ip’s for the ps3.
Sorry if I’m flooding.. Read the full text from the image I posted:
“This product has limited backward compatibility with PlayStation and PlayStation2 format software. Many PlayStation and PlayStation 2 format software titles operate, but full compatibility is not guaranteed. Updating the system software may improve compatibility. Visit http://www.us.playstation.com for system software updates.”
Don’t know if that text appears on all PS3s… I don’t remember that it did…
This is great news. The price drop that is, I don’t much care for the new SKU, as I could just upgrade the HDD myself, and I’ve already bought MotorStorm.
Excellent, I’ve told all my friends to go buy one now. This is even better with that 5 free blu-ray movies offer.
I rather have the 20GB ps3 for $299.
Oh yeah… Still need a real press release to get the Canadian price. Launch price here was $659.99, but the exchange went sour soon after launch so some places upped it to $699.59. EB Games stuck to $659.99. The 20 GB launched here at $549.99 so “hopefully” it’s that price when it gets to here. The exchange is good now so hopefully they don’t just do a $100 CAD drop
now all we need is more AAA games….
Seeing as the Xbox Elite is their biggest selling SKU which is priced at 479.99, that’s only 20 dollars less than a 60gb PS3, that should definitely increase sales. Lets go SONY, don’t forget the good games or the demos from E3, ok bye
@ PFKC
It just means, to enable the cost-cutting, the Emotion Engine chip was removed from the PS3.
Backwards compatibility, according to numerous websites has been at around 75% for PS3’s without the Emotion Engine chip back in March ’07 during the European PS3 launch, the first batch of PS3’s to be without the EE. Since then, firmware updates have been improving the compatibility. From my own experience, I haven’t played much PS2 games since owning a PS3, maybe just Okami and God of War 2, which both work 100%.
Here’s a Sony search tool to help you determine the compatibility status of games on the PS3:
http://www.us.playstation.com/Support/CompatibleStatus
I think it’s a great move – just before the flood of excellent first party games hit the market. $499 is an great price for all of that PS3 technology. That will send some of my friends to the store.
Why is it you guys always say “videos and trailers” Why is it we can’t get any demos…
[…] Sony heute im offiziellen Playstation Blog bestätigt hat, wird der Preis der Playstation 3 nun tatsächlich gesenkt. Allerdings gilt diese […]
Sony is trying real hard, why people keep complaining? what do you people know about smart move and bad move? anyway keep up good work, you have all my support Sony
Great move on Sony’s part. I’ve been waiting for this moment to come, now I can make my way to my local GameStop and buy myself a PS3 to enjoy HD gaming and blu-ray movies.
The only concern that I have about the PS3 now are the exclusives. The features aren’t such a big worry to me right about now, since I know that is going to come regardless through firmware updates in the future. But exclusives stay on 1 console only, or for an amount of time if its a timed exclusive. I would consider Sony to do whatever it takes to keep Metal Gear Solid 4 on the PS3. If Sony loses this exclusive, what will the PS3 be then? I am hoping that MGS4 will be announced at E3 for Playstation 3 and Playstation 3 ONLY! Not even a timed exclusive….
Sony PLEASE hear my cry…lol…(Not really) But please don’t let us down by letting Microsoft put MGS4 on the 360. And also, show us what the PS3 is worth through games being the main focus. Yes, blu-ray playback capablities, and all the other entertainment functionalities are great for the price, but the gaming experience is what its all about. @499 for the 60GB, I will definitely go and buy a PS3 over an Elite. Heck yeah!!!
The Home button in the picture is red? does this mean this new controller that comes with this new SKU will have the rumbling features?