I think SONY hoped or figured that BC would bring many PS2 owners to the PS3.  They gave that a shot and I am sure they got a number of people but quite frankly it wasn't enough.  They know they can't ride the PS2 success forever so this is a drastic measure to get people jump to the PS3 and quite honestly stop buying PS2 games and pick up the PS3 versions. 

 I know this has been view by many as bad move but quite honestly besides lying which everyone in the industry for the most part does is not a big deal.  The biggest winners and rightly so are people who want to play PS3 games and now may be able to afford the system.   They don't care about all the USB ports, card readers, and just want enough space to save their games. Basically the average gamer.  I really think the developers/publishers really pressed SONY to do this move because most have shifted to PS3 development.

  This is obvious as many multiplatform games are now selling better on the 360 then the PS2 which means people are moving to the "next gen" systems.  This was a good move for SONY though they will get bashed etc for a few weeks it will die down as gamers pick on something else to bash hopefully not SONY oriented lol.  If anyone has any other reason why this was done or if you agree or disagree I would like to hear from you.  I won't be able to get online for a bit but I look forward to some of your responces. 

I think they did it because they couldn't figure out any other way to cut costs. Like a lot of the decisions Sony makes, I'm not sure if they fully realized the implications of taking such action.

To make the new PS3s as cheap as possible, and to keep up demand for the PS2. It's pretty simple really, however the question of if it's a good or a bad idea is not.

I believe it was done out of necessity rather than a marketing strategy. Consider the most expensive aspects of the PS3...

Blu-Ray? Can't get rid of that.
Cell? Can't get rid of that.

So, they're forced to cut other features to save money. The cut features offer less of a savings-to-benefit ratio than cutting Blu-Ray or the pricey Cell technology would, but again, cutting those two things would be impossible at this point.

What we're seeing right now is Sony reaping what they've sown. They added expensive, integral technology that nobody cares about, so when they found that their strategy wasn't working and that they needed a price cut, they were forced to cut features that people actually care about (like backwards compatibility and memory card readers.)

I think they just forgot to but BC in there, you know like when put something from IKEA together and there is always something left over... thats what happend to BC... JK :) Sony had their reasons and whatever they where price is most important with this version, I´m not really sure the PS2 userbase was the reason, it hasn´t really helped the PS3 till now so I´m not sure how much it will in the future, as I sayed before I find it hard to tell the difference between loyal Sony fans who had a PS2 or poeple who where loyal to the PS2 because of it´s great games collection.

The question is how will this affect the PS3's "perceived value"?

I never had any problem with Ikea stuff O_o.

Anyways, yeah they need to cut the price somewhere but people who own PS2 games and still love to play them won't upgrade to this version of PS3. They'll wait till the other's price goes down... Well anyways that's what I would do.

Like I said, who doesn't own a PS2 already. I really don't think this will cause very many problems in the long run, especially if they come up with something similar as they have for the PS1, pure software emulation.

Sony didnt get rid of BC ,they still offer one model that has it ,the 80Gb one that will substitue the 60Gb both in Europe and North America .Pretty sure as well the japanese machine will keep its BC as well .

They are just offering one SKU of low price without BC for people that dont have PS2 games or simply dont care keeping their PS2 at home.