hmm, and also why only upgrade to 80? why not 120 or more?

What PS3 should have been

I am quite dissapointed with the way new PS3 turned out, I was expecting more from Sony scope-wise, the ultimate convergence device. Too much to ask?
Well, betting on Blue_ray is a risky push move that is intended on bringing huge future profits, and not that much to our benefit, ('...you gotta choose brother, are you with us or are you against us...'). Instead, I think we could've had something brilliant and for the same price. Picture this:
- same hardware, but standard DVD+RW burner
- Wlan for streaming media
- analog/digital TV/FM tuner and recorder to HD, DVD or card
- browser+mail,
- family organizer
- VOIP, SMS service
- OK, optianal outboard Blue-Ray drive
The potential is there, and probably could be turned into this by modders and Linux (Myth TV), but THIS should've been that bold move by Sony, not the Blue-Ray. Because they could provide the robust worldwide service to back it all up, and that is what would be the selling point (see Apple).

Reasons for not doing this?
- SONY needs new money from old/cheap sources (same media titles again on Blue_ray)
- cannibalism towards SONY standalone DVD recorders/tuners.
- this would compare to media-center PCs, and people would than prefer PCs
- not enough vision?

Isn't the 20/60 gb PS3 for $599 elite enough already?

...bc the $599 model is selling so well, so lets add another $100-$150 to equation. consumers will be racing to the stores to get themselves further in debt. it's brilliant.

Hmm, perhaps it'll replace the 60gb version to give sales a boost. Perhaps...

It's about marketing an image
They have to be seen to competing or being ahead of the competition.

And of course some people will always buy the best to be ahead of others.

You can use any laptop hard drive in the PS3. Go buy an after market one and save yourself the cash. I put a 200GB in mine for cheaper than MS is selling the 120GB.

They are probably going to just replace the 60GB HDD in the $599 model with 80GB since there is little price difference between the two drives.

Also, since the PS3 takes standard notebook drives, you could just change it out with any drive available now. Sony has probably thought through the fact that the PS3 will have multiple drive configurations throughout its lifetime.

If they do increase the HD on the PS3 I doubt they will charge more, HD prices are always droping. That 80gb drive probably costs as much as the 60gb one cost when they started building PS3s.

At least they are not adding a feature that current owners cant add themselves anytime (like MS adding an HDMI port after the fact).

I just added an off the shelf 160gb HD I got for $80, not a $179 120gb drive like MS is selling. And for me to transfer all my stuff to the new drive, I didnt need any special cable, just backed up to an external drive and restored back to the new drive.

Waiting for all the fanbois to come out and bash Sony for making a change to their product 4 months after launching... unknow, the same fanboys screaming bloody murder about Xbox making changes 1-1/2 years after their launch....

Waiting {crickets chirping}....

Still waiting...

Might be that they're just planning ahead and they'll gradually increase the size of HDDs year-on-year in both the cheap and expensive models.

Kind of reminds me of something a Sony exec said the other day.

"Sony is playing catch up to Microsofts XBOX 360 Elite." =0}

antbing, that'd void the warranty.

again, cduran02, voiding the warranty. Also, putting the bigger harddrive in doesn't include good games, does it?

Well, the PS3 can take standard notebook drives yes but not all notebook drives can be installed in the console. Also, for the record. The 360 isn't thing king of next gen games right now. Oh sure! you have FPS's out the ass, is that all you enjoy? it looks like the 360 is following the same foot steps as the Xbox, FPS's console of the future. If you want FPS buy a PC. Oh wait, that's a little more than $600.00 isn't it.

@timsuha

No, it doesn't void the warranty. They even show you how to do it in the manual. Anyone with a screwdriver can swap out the drives. Also, you can just attach usb external flash or hard drives for a no-fuss, no-muss PS3 solution to expanding your storage...

I guess you could technically even connect optical drives to the PS3, but there's really no need for that.

timsuha, replacing the PS3 HDD doesn't void the warranty. There's a convenient little slot on the side where you can pop out the old and slide in the new. Imagine that!
Sony does however request that if you must send your PS3 back for any reason, that you send it back with the original HDD.

By the way, I agree that if Sony is releasing an 80 gig PS3, it's probably replacing the 60 gig unit and going at the same price. Honestly, the PS3 doesn't need an "elite" unit, it's elite enough, and they don't need to keep up with the 360, it's obviously the other way around.

@Ixero

You're correct, the PS3 requires SATA notebook drives for internal installation.

Also, for those that are a little more advanced, you can get a SATA connector that runs from the internal SATA connector in the PS3 and will run to an external 3.5" standard hard drive... then you can start getting into redic amounts of storage available.

@Troy-Powers

I couldnt agree more.

Ok, now that we have the Xbox 360 Elite, does this mean it will be called the PLAYSTATION 3 MASSIVE DAMAGE?

If you replace the old drive can you copy old info to the new drive via pc? file format?

thisisPS300.gif

James: The PS3 has a backup/restore utility. So, you would need to back up your PS3 data to an external drive, then restore it to the new drive once installed.

So does the new model finally include an HDM freakin I cable?

Seriously though, what's the point of getting a large hard drive on the PS3? I thought the main highlight of a PS3 is the BluRay drive which can hold a lot of data therefore not requiring a large HD.

But not everything can be backed up... it seems. The manual warns about it.

The big question is - what are people doing with the 60GB drive? I have the PS3, and decided to give Linux 50GB worth, since I can't see transferring that much music and videos via memory cards. And you can't access music over the network (one reason I suppose you need a large disk), so it's either painfully copy my music an album at a time over via memory cards, or just leave it...

wait, so putting in that huge harddrive allows you to download all that content on sony's online store right?.... wait what? they don't have that great of online gaming or content? You mean to tell me that the shivering isles expansion for oblivion isn't on the ps3? Wtf? Yeah, I hated the ps2 bc it broke on me 3 times, but at least it had some good games. It took you forever to get oblivion and you don't even have a zombie game yet (which is where capcom started that stuff). I'll enjoy my dead rising, gears of war, and all the other sweet 360 games I can afford.

Is it going to be white?

Oh wow, that is soo elite, 20 more GB! (sarcasm) It should be able to throw ninja stars and jump rooftops as well.

still waiting on those fanbois from the 360 threads to hurry over to bash Sony for changing something in their console fater only 4 months ...

still waiting.... {whistling while the crickets chirp}

I'm an owner of the 360, but I really could care less what sony does. They still don't have any killer apps that would make me want a ps3. FFX was the only reason I kept my ps2 so long.

Hmmm it could be possible what with IBM successfully creating a 65 nm chip for the cell processor that they might bring the 60GB model price down to 499.99 and the 80GB model for 599.99. Of course the 80 GB model must have something that makes it worth the extra bones.

Come on, we all know that Sony's going to just bump the size of the existing one, so that instead of 20 --> 60, it's 20 --> 80.

I mean, it's not like they were selling 20s anyway. Even Sony isn't crazy enough to increase the price of their console due to such an incremental improvement.

I sure hope that this remains a rumor and that Sony isn't really going to do this with the intention of maintaining the current price of the PS3 for a long time. Isn't E3 coming up? Does Sony know something we don't know, hence they're trying to give us more for our money to increase the competition.

Think about this. Does anyone here really think that Sony would continuously increase the capacity of the SKU? What kind of backlash would that have if every few months an SKU with a higher capacity HDD is released? I don't want to keep getting more for the same price each year. I want to get the same for less. Also, why would they continue to release another high end SKU? Shouldn't the PS3 already be Elite enough?

I understand MSFT's case for the X360 Elite. It has HDMI which is built in, and a 120GB HDD (6x previous HDD). Also, there's only one HDD option for the X360; the 20GB snap on. Unlike the PS3's HDD, it can't be easily changed to any of so many standard HDDs out there. So why the extra 20GB?

MSFT and Sony need to slash some prices and stop adding extra stuff. What's out there now is good enough (X360 Elite included).

Oh yeah, the blu-ray disks have a large capacity, but the PS3 doesn't have a blu-ray-RW drive. The extra capacity is only useful for game developers, NOT us gamers. The extra capacity allows developers to put more game content and HD stuff (HD pre-rendered cutscenes eats storage) on a single disk. It does NOT automatically create or mean extra content. Extra content is all up to the game developers. Its not as though they were ever limited to one DVD back on the PS2/Xbox. They simply didn't make more content.

How much is Microsoft paying Gawker media to write biased "blog" entries?

Both Kotaku and Gizmodo are owned by Gawker Media and they are both pretty sensationalistic in their attacks against Sony.

"Could this be the basis for a marginally improved but wildly expensive and enticing PS3? If so, is it meant to compete with the Xbox 360 Elite? And, if so, why upgrade a machine that's already too expensive for most?"

Yeah, forget the obvious which is that a 20GB hard drive upgrade probably costs next to nothing, and the most logical conclusion is that they will upgrade the hard drive in future versions. Of course you try to imply that Sony is trying to "keep up" with Microsoft, when in fact it's the other way around. If Sony were "trying to compete" with the 360, they would not offer just 80GB, it would be 120GB or more. The fact is, they don't have to, because users can just buy the hard drive themselves... any hard drive, not just an overpriced one made by Microsoft.

So of course you miss the obvious in your attempts to serve the Microsoft propaganda machine. I hope they're giving you free laptops or beer or something.

That just shows how desperate Sony is. They're being trumped by a cheap Wii! Their game console monopoly is being toppled! Who knows, they might, just might, release a PS3 'Slimline' so our wallets won't be depleted!

I notice that no one on this thread has mentioned that they will be taking the Emotion Engine (PS2 hardware) out of future models of the PS3 sold in North America and Japan. These 80 gig harddrive versions have software emulation for the PS1 and PS2 games (meaning that not all of the old games will be compatible... at least until they run updates like the xbox360 does). 80 gig = the new world wide standard of the PS3 to replace the 20 AND 60 gig. It certainly explains why stores seem to be putting together some very nice offers to help the 60 and 20 gig models move along (and make room for these 80 gig ones). I'd rather shell out the money for the current 60 gig North American version which has PS2 guts inside than rely on software emulation forevermore. I hope that's all they plan on changing/improving/"streamlining"

Also, kinda worries me that they are tampering with the bluetooth... does this mean they may improve the bluetooth to support peripherals that the current 20/60 PS3s cannot support? (ei. a rumble capable SIXAXIS). I don't know much about bluetooth, but is this how it might work?

@timsuha: Seriously dude take your fan boyism somewhere that cares. I've got all three systems and each system has qualities better than the other. I honestly don't see how people get your rocks off coming into a PS3 article and simply trying to bash it. I think you were just sad that you got shot down with the whole "voided warrenty if you change the hdd" did that make you sad?