New PS3, New Price & More News Coming

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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)

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543 Comments

2 Author Replies

  • You know Sony 80gb PS3 doesn’t bug me, I got 10TB of raid 5 array here. So lot space anyway, not having HD cable with my 60gb, that ok. Ebay sell HDMI for like $4. Not having free game or rumbling SIXAXIS controller that fine to, got to buy other controller anyway. Little sad that you guys took out the Emotion Engine chip, that could been good way to help unlock more from PS3 using hardware as pair with Cell and RSX.

    But I would be damn, if there something on the 80gb PS3 that I couldn’t do on my 60gb. If that every happen, I’m going to BestBuy and buying a 80gb PS3 and putting my 60gb in the 80gb box and returning it….

    Fox

  • I dont know id you’ve answered this already but I didn’t go look at there are like 300+ mesages.

    Anyway, I was wondering, what about us UK gamers? Are we going to get a price drop as well? Also, will webe getting the new size PS3 and the brand new PS3 bundle?

    Whether you mean to or not, you always seem to miss us in the UK and Europe and we’re like the biggest concentrated area of Games Players in the world.

    So any details would be very much appreciated.

  • @ mufifnator2002

    SKU stands for “Stock Keeping Unit”. So in other words, right now Microsoft has 3 SKU’s in the market. The core model of the 360, the premium model, and the Elite model. The PS3 had 2, and now has two again. The $499 60GB model, and the $599 80GB model. They are just basically the units that are available at retailers.

    About that “KIXAXIS”, I think that was something someone made up as to be a “cool” name to call the new rumored rumble featured PS3 controller. Nothing fact yet though. Stay tuned to E3 this week.

  • They are going to do rumble on PS3 controller, battery life might be less, but if they don’t someone else will. Always have PS2 and wireless.

    Lucky I didn’t go for 20gb PS3 walmart had one for me at day of launch. I sold it on ebay next day then 3 month later got 60gb..

    Fox

  • EXCELLENT,
    PERFECT,
    MAGNIFICENT.

    Then again, North America = US only?

  • WT hell! Ok, I never comment and love Sony products, but this is out right wrong to the loyal Sony customers who sat their asses out ahead of time to get the original PS3 and are diehard loyal Sony PS3 fans. Just because Sony’s sales on the PS 3 didn’t make it as expected! This would take the place of us having to buy Motorstorm, but especially because we didn’t get the option of getting more HD space.
    Sony you did loyal PS3 fans wrong. Looks like Sony is getting competitive greedy and if that’s the case, protest Sony people!

    What a bunch of crap!

  • You guys took my comment out about giving previous customers a free choice of game.

  • @356

    Yes, the PS3 shall forever remain at $599, it shall never fall in price as that is just insane. Imagine, cutting the price on a product! Unheard of, this… is… CRAZY.

  • I agree with those wanting a price for loyalty, a free online check for 25 USD?

    PSHome Special Object?

  • @359

    There shouldn’t be loyalty involved, you either wanted a PS3 at $599 (or the other version at $499), or you didn’t.

  • DaKing240.com » Sony No Price Cut, Ok, Price Cut

    […] I do not know who to trust and who to believe anymore, but.. SURPRISE, Sony’s official blog posted this news […]

  • Hmm while I’m not necessarily affected by this since I own a PS3 already, $100 more for 20 more gigs and game seems a bit too much, maybe addingan HDMI cable in the bundle would justify that $100 jump.

    Oh and to the first one who commented. Its true that the $499 model aka the 20GB failed because the consumers preferred the 60GB despite being the pricier model. So now we have the preferred model cheaper plus a new minor upgraded version whcih the only difference is having 20 more gigs in the HDD, really small specially considering you can switch HDDs. I dont see the 60GB failing because of this. Though I can be wrong of course

  • Ok. The price cut is a good move… a needed move!

    Now this is what you need to go back at #1 :

    — EXCLUSIVE games lots of them (not only Sony)
    — Movie, Video, Music downloads
    — XMB access in Games
    — Home
    — More ads on TV. Peoples need to know why the PS3 is the Ultimate Machine.

  • @362
    The 20GB unit would have been purchased more often if it was still available. The reason it “flopped” is because Sony lost too much on it and hardly shipped any and basically none in 2007.

    Only real hardcore fans were buying it before and after Christmas since stock was not so high, many people just were going to wait and perhaps get the cheaper 20GB unit. It did badly because there was hardly any available.

  • Well PSone game downloads are old and cheap, they should be free to PS3 owners. Then for sure you will need 80gb PS3 :P but ya I feel your upset with Sony and for the fanboy of Sony Corp, we help get that 2 million mark of PS3.

    For myself I’m not to upset, it work and dose what I want it to do. All my PSone and PS2 games work out of the box, so that good.

    Sorry to say Sony you do suck at audio gear, amps are good for the price, but your speaker suck! Even with your new ver.s models still lack. JBL got my pick this time, or build my own ~winks~

    Overall Sony Corp rules all they make the best CRT and LCD, but what with computer thing, you know that third-party parts don’t make the brand any better. Start using more high stuff, Maxtor/Intel/ECS part come on??

    Fox

  • This is great news! Now let’s bring on the games. The next few months are gonna be great.

  • What I really want to know is why Sony has pulled the Backwards Compatibility hardware from the 80GB models. This act ALONE will ensure I never buy a PS3.

  • The problem is that you guys went back to where you started.

    Sales statistics show that most average consumers, when in the market for a high end gaming console, always get the most expensive one, thinking its the “best”.

    So really, the 80GB PS3 is the new 60GB, and the 60GB is the new 20GB (as in it will not sell as well anymore and will eventually be killed off).

    The best move would be to either replace the 60GB with the 80GB or just put the price cut and be done with it.

  • @367
    BC is fine without the PS2 CPU, it’s higher than the Xbox 360 percentage but the PS2 had many more games.

    @368
    This is almost entirely different, as long as this is seen as a bundle, the 60GB unit will still be perceived as the best option because you could switch the drive if you wanted. It is really dependent on how the new unit is marketed though.

  • @Finster

    They are pulling the Emotion Engine chip for hardware base backwards compatibility, PS3 ship with EE chip, but now they find better just let cell do the work and software..

    Fox

  • @K

    You know how good the EE chip was for PS2 and if it already in the hardware part of the PS3 they know they can use that cpu to power more apps in the PS3, that what they should have been thinking about when building it! Fact it a Mips R5900 core, which is free floating 64x open gate way IC, very poweful. Sgi used same cpu in there I2 workstation back in 1993 which help make one of the great movies, Jurassic Park..

    Fox

  • For those of you telling those of us who were “early adopters” to STFU, I have to ask, why is it OK for you to make your view and opinion known, but not ours? You think “we” are whiny and so on, yet our point of view is no less or more valid than yours.

  • Well I would only see the EE as being useful if there was a game that used up the entire cell processor including the reserved OS portion and say you wanted to listen to music ingame without skips.

  • @372
    early adopters know (or should know) the price of consumer products go down over time (most things at least). Why are people complaining now when this has happened many times in previous generations?

  • @374

    Just because it’s happened in the past and the present, doesn’t mean we can’t be vocal about it. That is my only point.

    And I’ve accepted it. I was pissed at first, but for me this is yet another admission by Sony that the PS3 isn’t doing nearly quite as well as they are/were claiming.

    They have some of the best promotions for purchasing the system, namely the free Blu-Ray movies. This reminds me of Sega’s “3 Free” promotion… which failed to sell systems as well. A year after the 3 month promo ended you could still buy a Saturn with the 3 free games. Sure the BD promo isn’t a PS3 exclusive, but you have to admit it does tie in with the system.

    Do I wish to see Sony fail? No. Are they failing anyway? It’s only 9 months into the system, I’d say no, but they aren’t gaining much ground on the same token.

  • I bought my 60GB PS3 A few months ago for $599. Did I suspect that the price would come down in the Summer? You bet I did. I bought it anyway because I could afford to do it. If I only wanted to spend $499 on a game system and BD movie player, then I would’ve waited.

    I wanted one, I could afford it, I bought it. Simple as that. Would I trade in all of my enjoyment for the past 3 months for $100? Would I trade it for Motorstorm and an extra 20GB? Nope. I made my decision and I’m more than happy to live with it.

  • I will make it easy, MS user you set us back in the computing industry by at least 10 years.

    ~look under the hook of PS3~ nope I don’t see Bill Gates here..

    It’s a fact that any UNIX box will out power any PC, that a fact.

    All UNIX base boxes like PS3, are built to hand those task given to them. That why they call it a Custom Engineer Computer.

    Here side note: Once inexpensive PCs began have graphics performance close to the more expensive specialized graphical workstations, Many graphics engineers have left to work at other computer graphics companies like ATI and NVIDIA, contributing to the PC 3D graphics revolution.

    Got to thank those UNIX engineers for your PC gaming..

    No I don’t want to play music while playing games, it called clustering.

    Fox

    Support OpenGL

  • LifeParticles.com » Red lighting on 80GB PS3 box not a sign of rumble [update]

    […] According to Patrick Seybold on the official PlayStation.Blog, “Just want to clarify for those wondering why the PS Button on the controller is red. That […]

  • Its a god News but It will be god if you give something to the owners of the PS3 that had the PS3 since the begining, maybe dowload games or something to be a greatfull to them But im buying My ps3 in this week thansk Sony!!

  • Free PSone games !

  • PATRICK SEYBOLD,

    ONE QUESTION, (ALMOST 2…)

    HOW LONG WILL THE 60 GB PS3 WITH THE EE CHIPS BE AROUND FOR??
    OR DO PS3 WITH EE CHIPS HAVE THEIR DAYS NUMBERED??

  • It already gone, they are being pulled as we speak. 80gb already here so it gone forever. Lucky me I have EE chip model.. My PS2 is not happy about that..

  • I wouldn’t think of this as anymore like the psp entertainment. It would be basically the same thing. You get more memory and a game for $100 more. Besides, we should all know by now you can use most internal hard drives if you want more space for very cheap (compared to the 360 you have to buy their hard drive). The only thing I heard they were going to do before was take a component out of the ps3 that ran backwards compatibility and use patches instead like the one Europe got. The ps3 there is cheaper than ours because of that reason. So the basically took EU model and put it in the US. Not a bad idea and still works just as good. Besides, Microsoft is having a huge problem right now and the 360 is not worth it because they rushed to put it out.

  • Kratos_ate_Snake

    i just want demos…

  • new_age_soldier

    Hey, so people who work at Sony can see this huh??? Well, I been a PS loyalist since PS when it had no number lol. I love the PS2 and wanted to get the PS3. I love the price drop to the 60 giger but one thing that still bugs me to this day is the lack of force feed back on the controler B.K.A. Dual shock Vibration!!! Sony has kissed and made up with immersion so I’m hoping ya can rumble up something come this E3(Tomorrow) I know I’m not the only one who wants this. Look all over the internet and all the rumors for a rumbling Six axis. Motion sensing plus dual shock or touch sense as I think its called now would equal AWESOME and perfection! Would be the best controler this gen for many! Besides, we want MGS4 to HAVE rumble as well as motion sensing. So come on Sony Bring rumble Back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And keep motion sensing with it!!!!!!!

  • new_age_soldier

    Hey, so people who work at Sony can see this huh??? Well, I been a PS loyalist since PS when it had no number lol. I love the PS2 and wanted to get the PS3. I love the price drop to the 60 giger but one thing that still bugs me to this day is the lack of force feed back on the controler B.K.A. Dual shock Vibration!!! Sony has kissed and made up with immersion so I’m hoping ya can rumble up something come this E3(Tomorrow) I know I’m not the only one who wants this. Look all over the internet and all the rumors for a rumbling Six axis. Motion sensing plus dual shock or touch sense as I think its called now would equal AWESOME and perfection! Would be the best controler this gen for many! Besides, we want MGS4 to HAVE rumble as well as motion sensing. So come on Sony… Bring rumble Back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And keep motion sensing with it!!!!!!!

  • new_age_soldier

    OK one last time, Hey, so people who work at Sony can see this huh??? Well, I been a PS loyalist since PS when it had no number lol. I love the PS2 and wanted to get the PS3. I love the price drop to the 60 giger but one thing that still bugs me to this day is the lack of force feed back on the controler B.K.A. Dual shock Vibration!!! Sony has kissed and made up with immersion so I’m hoping ya can rumble up something come this E3(Tomorrow) I know I’m not the only one who wants this. Look all over the internet and all the rumors for a rumbling Six axis. Motion sensing plus dual shock or touch sense as I think its called now would equal AWESOME and perfection! Would be the best controler this gen for many! Besides, we want MGS4 to HAVE rumble as well as motion sensing. So come on Sony, Bring rumble Back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And keep motion sensing with it!!!!!!!

  • Why keep on complaining people?

    You have a choice. It’s all about choices damint. If you want to be a cheap ass get the $500 60gb PS3. If you want a free game and an extra 20 gb get the $600. It’s not like you’re getting some corny game. MS is a nice way to showcase your PS3’s power to friends or what not.

    Or you can buy one of those consoles that are sure to break in the next 7 months. Its your choice!!!

    I don’t know about you guys but I was raised to value quality over cheap [DELETED].

  • I completely agree with the first guy, but from looking at the box, it does say limited time, so maybe the 80GB will only be released for a short amount of time.

  • Oh My God.

    I bought my PS3 @ launch and love it. I would buy the 80 gig/ Motorstorm bundle if I did not allready own my PS3. Getting an extra 20 gigs and a AAA racing title for the same price as the PS3 that I own is a wonderful thing.

    The price cut on the 60 gig is also a great way to create hype for the holidays.

    WITH ALL OF THE GREAT GAMES COMING OUT THIS YEAR, E3 AROUND THE CORNER TO SHOWCASE THESE TITLES, A PRICE CUT AND A BUNDLE WITH AN EXTRA 20 GIGS AND A GAME AT THE CURRENT GOING RATE, OH AND 5 FREE BLU-RAY MOVIES WHATS NOT TO LIKE?

    Half of you guys sound like grown up five year olds; I want Sony! I want! My father told me “Put want in one hand and S%*t in the other and see which one fills up first.”

    If you dont own a PS3 get one. If you do and your not happy with it you should quit playing games.

    It wont get any better until PS4 and yet the same half of you will still WANT!

  • thanks for answering my question about SKU’s and KIXAXIS much appreciated

  • Limited time as in Free Game, 80gb will be new model for Sony..

    Fox

  • Is the 80 gig a limited time offer and will it always come with moterstorm or will it be like the taladega nights thing with the first shimpmeant of ps3’s and when is the second shipmeant of them coming if there is one

  • @ Sony

    The new box is beutiful. Great job on the marketing.

  • I support Sony fully and have always been loyal to buying their game systems. But then again, I’d like something back for loyalty. I bought my 60GB PS3 in late December at $600 + tax + an extra SIXAXIS (which also dropped price on Amazon.com) + a game + a Blu-ray remote. A total of about $750. To add the TV, HDMI, and 7.1 surround sound receiver which would total out at about $3500 dollars. I’ve bought 2 more games since and a handful of Blu-ray movies. Plus the games on reserve I have, Grand Theft Auto IV, Madden 08, and Assassin’s Creed. A bunch of cash I’ve poured into it. The $100 would have been a nice cut off my bill. Sure, it’s only a fraction of the entire bill but that $100 could have bought games, enjoyed a game/concert.

    Those of us that kept Sony from completely tanking should be rewarded for taking the leap of faith when everyone said don’t get one. I really didn’t think 8 months in, they’d do a price drop when the 360 didn’t drop for twice that time.

    Some coupons, gift certificates, full credit for any upgrade in hardware we want… anything free just to show some appreciation for our loyalty to the company but don’t let the new PS3 buyers get the same perks.

    Either way, I’m happy with my purchase but Sony really let me down with this one. It’s definitely going to affect how I purchase from them from now on.

  • new_age_soldier

    I for one love the price drop so a lot of the haterz can pipe down. But not to hate or anything, Sony just needs to bring the rumble back to the sixaxis.

  • You might be in luck! I think that I read somewhere that God of War 3 is going to have rumble support, so that means SIXAXIS Rumble should be underway.

  • @ dachanghi

    You got to spend 9 months with your PS3 so far.

    The Past 9 Months where worth more than $100.00 to me.

  • I think that the only reason that Sony introduced the new PS3 is because they wanted a reason to lower the price. Home is coming out soon and that is going to be a big reason to buy a PS3. When Home comes out more people are going to want to buy a PS3 so they are going to be looking for a good deal, and that’s why they would want to come out with this new 80GB. The 80GB version of the system along with Home is just a big marketing plan from Sony to get a lot more customers. All the people that I have shown Home to really liked it, and that is the only reason that they wanted to get a PS3. Home should just be advertised more and then tons more people would want to buy a PS3.

  • ultimatenija had some good points…I do believe it’s a step in the right direction for sony and the ps3. what are they doing with the 20g version…no price cut in NA? They should have waited on the controller to have rumble…but maybe that tells us how far off they are away from getting that done?

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