I have recently spoken too two seperate employees at two seperate Electronics Boutique (EB- A specialist gaming chain in Australia) employees at two seperate stores, and they eached claimed that an 80gb PS3 is coming to Australia.

I asked whether a PS3 SKU with backward compatability would come to Australia, and they each said they weren't sure, but that Sony had told EB an 80gb SKU would be arriving on our shores.  To ensure they weren't getting mixed up with the US market, I asked and they said that they were definately told an 80gb SKU was coming to Australia.  That said, they couldn't confirm it was the same 80gb model (ie with BC) that was released in the USA.

I worked at EB games, and trust me, don't trust us. o.0

I think that the PS3 will get a new SKU in Australia when the DVR peripheral gets released, they would simply pack that DVR peripheral with a PS3 with a larger HDD, seems reasonable I think.

Bummer. A $AU500 PS3 with BC is what will make me purchase one. Given the exchange rate, the 40gb should already be at $AU500, rather than $AU700, even accounting for scale and taxes.

Games in Australia have always been expensive, it's nothing new.

Yeah i know, and its unlikely to change much. Though the Wii has received an exchange rate-related price drop lately around me. But seriously, what do you think the chances are that the 80gb will come to Australia (or the wider PAL region)?

I think the chances are pretty high, I know they're trying to phase out the 20 and 60, I think they'll keep the 40 and 80 around as the two units. But Troll might be right, they might release a DVR unit with a bigger hard drive, who knows XD

DVR ?
Someone have some sources about that ?

I wouldn't mind, but HDD space really counts for nothing since I'm gonna pop in a 320 GB anyways once I have a PS3.