Sony slashes price of 80GB PS3 and announces 40GB version

Foster City (CA) –Joing the PS3 club is going to be a little nicer to your wallet starting next month but there’s always a catch.

Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) today announced that it will introduce a Playstation 3 with a 40 GB hard drive on November 2. The new entry-level model will be priced at $399 (USD/CDN) and comes with Spider-man 3 on Blu-ray. The company also has cut the price of its regular 80 GB console to $499, down from $599.

Besides the smaller hard drive, the 40 GB PS3 has the same key technical details of the 80 GB version. However, the software emulation capability for backwards compatibility is gone in this model : Sony confirmed that this console will not run PS2 games. Gamers looking for this feature will have to shell out $500 for the 80 GB version.

Sony justified this move by stating that the removal of the backwards compatibility feature reflects a “more extensive line-up of PS3 specific [game] titles,” which may sound strange to those who are comparing the available games for the PS3 and its competitors. Could it be that the difference between a 40 GB and an 80 GB hard drive cannot justify a $100 premium these days and another feature had to be sacrificed ?