From what I've heard, they don't have a lot of space. So having BC is really nice because you can basically ditch the PS2, and since the PS3 is so big already, it doesn't help that they also have to have a PS2 right next to it.

I can't believe how much people care about BC! I only own 3 PS2 games anymore because I traded all the good ones in.

(The 3 i still have are NHL 05, NBA 04, PGA Tour 05. All too old to trade in)

I would easily give up BC for like $20. No big deal. There aren't many good ones coming for PS2, mostly shovelware trying to milk the high install base. The biggest title released recently is God of War II. There might be the very occasional good game (CoD5 I've heard) that comes to PS2, but nothing major.

No, 40GB can't get backwards compatibility through firmware, because it lacks the Graphics Synthesizer of the PS2, which had a 48GB/s eDRAM that cannot be emulated because the RAM of the PS3 is nowhere as fast.

And that comment was hilarious Griffin, thanks for giving me some laughs today :)

Perhaps, just perhaps, people want BC to be able to play old PS2 games, and not any coming out soon.

 Even though I am not an avid console collector like some other VGCharters (Mike_intellivision for one) I still have an N64 and most of the games I bought for it, and had the Wii not had BC I would also have a GameCube so I could still play the great games I bought for it... fortunately however the Wii has 100% perfect backward compatibility,  so I could trade in my GC (and 3 games I didn't want) but still play my old games when I wanted to.

Thanks Fazz, seems the 40GB will never get BC then. 

So people are complaining about the 40gig not having PS2 BC. What about regular PS BC? Just wondering.

And yes, I am proud to say I have a 60gig. Funny story, I was going to get an 80gig one in November, then read some stuff online and saw - Holy Crap! - that the 60gig has near-perfect BC as opposed to the 80gig. On October 20, I went out and bought my 60gig, like, at the super last minute. Totally worth $500. So good. Oh yeah, I have like 50 PS2 games and 20 PS games. So I'd NEED BC unlike some other people here.

Maybe Sony will take this as a sign and implement full Backwards capability in all of the next SKU's since the tech is so cheap now.

 Not cheap enough, or they wouldn't have slashed it out of the 40GB SKU to begin with.

I picked up my 20 GB used for $350, with two controllers and Dark Kingdoms (GAG).

I'm thankful every time I power it up that i bought it when I did, the non-BC would be a deal breaker for me for sure.

That being said, I understand Sony slashing EE to cut production costs, but I don't understand exactly why they can't just update the 40GB SKU for emulation, since the 80GB runs PS2 by way of software.

It's actually half software, half hardware. The 80gigs have a graphics chip in them, whereas the 40gigs don't. And this chip is needed to run PS2 games. Read Fazz's post a few posts up.

I thought the only hardware they had included was the EE chip.

My bad. :)