I'm sure a lot of people bought it, but when <50% (based on surveys) of your userbase ever goes online, you are looking at probably <25% (pulled out of thin air) of your userbase ever buying the Wifi adapter.  Charging $100 for a $10 item is brillaint though

 oh dear. what a cheap attempt at wit

The wi-fi was part of the reason i went for PS3 as I'm not running a cable through the length of my house.

1st off, Wifi is cheap as hell, even the Wii has Wifi.
2nd, if you remove the BR, then you have to have a different format for the games and re-release all previous games on the new format. That idea, to say the least, is just plain stupid.
Maybe they should stop putting quality components together and replace them with poorly designed and cheaply made components so they can sell the ps3 for $199.00. It worked for M$.

Yes, that's why nearly every hotel, coffee shop, book store and mall have Wi-fi hot spots.

This.

he wanted to remove BR movie playback, not BR support entirely. try reading the OP.

Wi-Fi is fine for surfing the internet; for on-line gaming it doesn't come close.  There are other alternatives to running cables though.

Well that was shockingly harsh.  Hm...

*hardware revision, trying to make every component smaller in order to reduce production costs,and overall size of the ps3
*smaller hard drive lets say 20 GB(if u want bigger can always install a laptop 2.5'' sata hard drive)
*loose the wifi
*produce them in a third world country to reduce costs
*experiment with cheaper materials to reduce cost (without affecting quality)

I bought it,  it was either that or pay $150+  to have someone come out and install a ethernet cable.