yea basically they wanted to take the EE chips out of all the PS3s to make it cheaper to manufacture. I think they save about $25 per system by doing this, so instead of just all the sudden taking out all the EE chips they made a new SKU and lowered the price of the other. I think this was a much better idea than just taking out all the EE chips and not lowering the price of the others.
currently playing: Skyward Sword, Mario Sunshine, Xenoblade Chronicles X