Exactly because Sony can't have the idea that the price actually rose, is why the price of the 80 gb is going to be 500 dollars when it's sold alone after the limited edition.

Here is a more convincing explanation if you still didn't get it:

The PS2 was dropped in price to get rid of the old big ones in time to sell the new ones and then the new ones took the place of the old as the standard.

They are getting rid of older models. The problem is the 60 gb ones hadn't sold out so they had to do it like this.

I just got a 500gb harddrive for my computer last week.  It was 100 dollars.  (if u need a newegg link, i'll get it)

$60 game = $60.

I got 5 gigabytes per dollar.

$100-60=$40.

PS3, you get .5 gigabytes per dollar.

I'm sure you could find even better deals than I did on my harddrive, but I got 10x the value of storage for my harddrive.  Of course we're comparing a PC harddrive to a Console harddrvie, but I mean, come on, 20gb is no where near 40 dollars.

And of course, we're no longer getting the true emotion engine.

So no, it's no where near 100 dollars.

Of coruse this is my opinion (I'd find it hard to disagree with me though...)

Look guys this is how they're gonna do it because it costs 'em too much money to just drop the price now. It's a really smart move and it will increase the userbase quickly for games and movies.

The blu ray offer is temporary, the price point isn't the PS3 is going to have 1 SKU according to Sony after this and according to logic because they announced a price drop it is going to be at the 500 dollar price tag.

 Your theory about the holidays makes perfect sense and lowering the price is always a great thing in the eyes of the consumer, but that part above is what still gets me.  That part just always says to me that they think Motorstorm is worth $100 and that just doesn't make a lot of sense to me.  I don't know, could just be late and I just could be crazy at the moment.

I got it immediately. Comprehension is not the issue. Your solution is one possible way to handle it. They could also keep the price at 599 to recoup some of their billions of dollars in losses. They could also start a new standard edition that resembles the new UK bundle pack. They could remove more components and drop the price to 399! Yours is certainly quite possible, it's just not confirmed. That's why we all instantly jumped for a link -- you phrased this as if you knew with some certainty.

It would be as if I stated that Konami is ramping up their Wii development. Obviously that's logical, as almost every other major developer in the industry has publicly stated that they're doing that, but they haven't officially announced it.

So you're telling me a value of 80 dollars is far from 100 dollars? lol

The emotion engine doesn't matter because backwards compatibility is working and it is being improved constantly just like the 360 did. The average person has no idea about backwards compatibility only we do and it's still not a big deal if it plays most of the games to be upgraded as time goes by... 

It has not been stated anywhere that Sony will reduce the 80Gb version to $499. Don't forget, this is brand new information, that probably wasn't supposed to come out.

Sony have now set the entry level price for the PS3 to $499. It will remain at this level now. Although you may be able to get higher spec bundles for more cash.

Once the 60Gb PS3's sell out it...and this won't happen overnight, they will probably most likely reduce the cost of the 80Gb version to make it the standard entry level version.

This looks like their strategy. The 80Gb version will cost less to produce than the 60Gb version. The new version comes out on 1st August. There is no way that the 60Gb versions will be sold out by then. I reckon we will see the 80Gb being reduced around September/October time and hopefully by then we will only have the one PS3 unit in the market place.

But this is all predictions you are making that you trumpeted as fact in your first post?  Sony has done stupider things than make a console's price rise.  Just because it isn't good for Sony and isn't good for your arguements on VGchartz forums doesn't mean it isn't possible...

Is there going to be a period of time where there is just the limited edition 80 GB PS3 for sale then? And will it still be $600?

Or will Sony make sure to release the regular 80 GB model in time...

Anybody think this might stagnate sales a bit? I get the price cut, but if I wanted to get a PS3, I would wait until the 60 GB sold out and the 80 GB dropped to $500. A little patience will get you a bigger hard drive...but what about that 12% of games. I better be able to play Horsez.

A bit off topic, but what makes emulation software only work with 88%? Is it the DVD games vs. the CD games of the PS2 or is it something deeper in the coding?