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Frazzl on 08 April 2010
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Vetteman94 said:
Frazzl said:
Bowspearer you've struck the nail on its head. All the Sony apologists here don't seem to get the point. It's not about how "popular" a feature is. It's simply about Sony removing an advertised feature from their product; a feature that may have been the motivating factor for a consumer purchasing their product (as was the case for you).

The PS3 unfortunately has a long history of losing features (just compare a 60 gig launch PS3 with the current slim versions), and prior to the release of the PS3 Slim, these losses were done without a commensurate price drop. This isn't the way to treat consumers. Unless you've been blinded by some misguided notion of brand name loyalty.

Every single hardware revision has come with a price drop.  

20GB w/ hardware BC was $500
60GB w/ hardware BC was $600

40GB no BC  was $400
80GB w/ software BC was $500

80GB no BC $400
160GB no BC $500

120GB Slim $300
250GB Slim $350

Actually that's not accurate:

The 80 gig PS3 with only partial software PS2 BC was released in the US for $599 in 2007 (the same price as the original 60 gig BC PS3). The PAL regions got 60 gig PS3s with only partial software PS2 BC, and the release prices were USD $827 in the UK, $895 in Australia and $945 in New Zealand! Imagine being charged such a huge mark up for less features! If you don't believe me here are my sources:

http://kotaku.com/gaming/we.re-slashing-prices/sony-confirms-ps3-price+cut-80gb-bundle-276091.php (for the US 80 gig PS3)

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3_launch#Release_data_and_pricing (for general pricing data).

 

Let's also not forget I was not talking about a price drop in general, but a commensurate price drop. Giving me 20 gigs extra along with Motorstorm (a game that I don't like or want) doesn't make up for removing hardware backwards compatibility, especially considering how much emphasis Kutaragi placed on hardware backwards compatibility, going as far as taking a jab at MS for not having it:

"The current Xbox will become antiquated once the new machine comes out this November. When that happens, the Xbox will be killing itself. The only way to avoid that is to support 100 percent compatibility from Xbox 360’s launch date, but Microsoft won't be able to commit to that. It's technically difficult." - (http://boardsus.playstation.com/t5/Electronic-Entertainment-Expo/Kutaragi-talks-PS3-backward-compatibility-disses-360-again/m-p/17934738 and http://www.gamesradar.com/ps2/playstation-2/news/our-10-favorite-ken-kutaragi-quotes/a-200704271134040000/g-20060331143728168090/c-1).