It's been a while already, and sure I know Sony wants the profit that selling some more PS2s could bring, but c'mon! Enough is enough! They should announce it at E3, I'm sure everyone will win with such a decision and maybe Japanese sales would stop sucking once and for all...

When do you think it will happen?

Never.  There's abolutely no reason it shouldn't have it now.  In fact that is largely one of the reasons blamed for the huge failure of the PS3 in Japan.  The bottom line is the PS3 has been in cost cut mode since day 1.  They are still losing over $100 per PS3 anyway you slice it (see other thread).  So it is unlikely the PS3 sees any new features anytime soon.

Maybe this Christmas, maybe next. =)

If you want to play PS2 games buy a PS2. No need for PS3 to include BC.

They will update 40 gb PS3 at some point via firmware so it becomes BC,,

why not now?first of all PS2 sales would decrease which is something they don't want now since PS2 is giving them huge profits.

Demand for PS3 will rise which again will lead to more loss for sony right now since every PS3 is sold at $130 loss for sony.

At two times you could see software BC on 40 gb via a firmware that might cost something like $20:

1.when PS2 is officially discountinued
2.When PS3 starts to return profit instead of loss(that profit should be higher than the profit PS2 makes)

that is from a business stand point of view.

I think they would if they could, but the lack of the GS chip (like in the 80gb model) makes emulation of both the EE and GS chips on the 40gb PS3 much harder than simply emulating the EE chip (a la the 80gb model).

@smbu2000

read my previous post,,,that's why they won't do it just now.If they want to do it ,it's doable with good programing.

I'm not too sure if it will happen though, as Sony said they wanted to focus on new games instead of BC!

One thing that would work however would be to have both the 40GB and 80GB PS3 available everywhere... I don't see how it is fair only the US having the choice! Come on Sony!

Not at all, the lack of the chip necessary to do this makes it fairly impossible.

I didn't say it was impossible, I said it was much harder w/o both chips.

If what you're saying is true then Sony wouldn't have needed full BC in the first place. They only slowly cut it out to reduce the costs on the PS3. If Sony could easily include BC on the 40gb model then they wouldn't need to bother with re-introducing the 80gb model w/software BC in the USA (MGS4 bundle).

Are you saying they would charge like $20 to download the firmware w/BC(if they had it?) That would be pretty craptastic. Just like I thought it was screwed up when MS made you buy their DVD remote control to be able to play DVDs on the Xbox 1 (one of the reasons I never bought the Xbox 1 in the first place, haha)