I just want to restate some facts that others have said and add some of my own ideas:
1. There is a $500 PS3 that most people preferred and was $600 last week.
2. That $500 60GB PS3 won't sell out any time soon, because unlike a certain other company, Sony produced a lot of consoles.
3. If they did sell out in a few months they probably would have caught up to the Wii. How would that be bad?
4. Of course Sony isn't going to say that the 80GB will drop in price. They want to sell all of the 60GB PS3 right now (which is selling very well because of the $100 price cut). They needed a sales boost and they got it. Saying that a (marginally) better PS3 will be $500 months down the road wouldn't make sense, now would it?
5. Those that do opt for the 80GB PS3 make Sony money, so that helps them.
6. Someone said that this deal is screwing over early adoptors, which of course it isn't, since anyone can upgrade their hard drive with any notebook drive or normal hard drive that would just hang out of the system (unlike the 360, which uses a proprietary connection scheme).
7. The 80GB will become the standard at some point in the future, but it might be several months. The backwards compatibility started at around 75% without the EE in Europe from what I read (I can find the source hopefully if needed), and that was in March. Since then every update has improved it and was better than Microsoft's was, especially last year.
8. Software emulation is the only way to upscale PS1/2 games, so even the original PS3s in the US will be using software emulation in the future. Hardware emulation was only put in originally so that backwards compability could be improved before they had to rely on it.
9. The 80GB PS3 will receive a price cut after the 60GBs are sold out, but that might be awhile. Even if both are around by Christmas they could both receive a price cut by then. Sony's $500 stand-alone blu-ray player will drop by then, too, because $300 players will be out by then.
10. People mention that there was no price cut after the 20GB was phased out, but that price-cut was the one that happened a few days ago. It only took a few months. I don't think there will be as long as a wait next time, but 20GB isn't a big price to pay for those that decide to get a PS3 before then. Also, it will be after September (because is 60GB sold out before the it would be amazing) when the 5 free blu-ray movie deal is up, indicating that it was a better deal for the consumer to get the 60GB before the 80GB dropped, because for the price of 5 blu-ray movies you can get close to 500GB if you want.
So, the lessons of this week and weeks past: Sony needs to tell their people to shut up and let things happen without their own execs spoiling the logical moves to follow.
Regardless of the confusion, there are some terrific deals right now for the 60GB PS3. 5 free blu-ray movies for every blu-ray player (including PS3s) until the end of september, an extra controller if you go Circuit City, an extra movie and blu-ray/DVD remote if you go Amazon, etc.
PS: 11. The special edition with motorstorm could easily include the new map pack to be sold next month, which would help the deal there. Motorstorm itself is worth $40 now, the pack will probably be less than $10, and 20GB and conveniance isn't quite worth $50 but it will still sell, and like I said, Sony wants to clear the 60GB anyway.
