OK it's proven: no one reads my posts :P As I said almost in the beginning of the thread:

"And before people start saying PS2 emulation comes for free with software, it's not true. Even the 80 GB PS3 has the GS chip, just not the EE...

But Sony is saving very little by removing the GS, card readers and 2 of the USB ports... if those are the only differences, it goes to show how desperate for money they are."

Well, considering that most likely Halo or just SSBB will outsell every ps3 game this holiday is something you should consider. Its not about how many, its how big. If it was how many, wii would wtf pwn. In terms of size, Ratchet and clank is the only proven IP with socom to come out next year, and GT is just the pro.

You throw in games like PGR 4, Mass effect, bioshock, etc, super mario galaxy, metroid prime etc, and you see much more BIGGER games are coming out.

There are games coming out that I think some people might be interested especially being established series from the PS2 days like Beautiful Katamari and Ace Combat. Then you got a number of games like crash, flatout among others that have their own following and these games won't be available on the PS3 this holiday. Basically I believe the PS2 built its strong install by offering multiple games across different genres and I feel that is what the XBox 360 is offering. Might not be the greatest game for you but it is for others. Is great the PS3 has haze and unreal but there is also cod4, timeshift, the orange box etc which are all first person shooters. Diversity is important as you get different people to buy your system for the games they enjoy. This is why I believe a price drop or lower end PS3 won't help as much as some hope.

Well, it could help PS2 sales. I guess that could be a silver lining.

CaseyWegner (who is the very definition of a drunk-with-power moderator) banned me too a year or two ago for posting in a thread that a troll started. (I wasn't banned, but my 7 day suspension has lasted a LOT more than 7 days...)

I'm glad I don't post there anymore - the immaturity of the Gamespot userbase drove me crazy.

on topic: I've read many reports of the 40GB being 'confirmed' today. Is the PS2 GPU required for software BC? They can at least have medicore backwards compat like the 360 does (no xbox1 hardware) right?  Or no?

I didn't find the immaturity that bad. Some of the stupidity going on in that place is what kept me going back. Some things were just so funny, like the infamous "PCs can't do HD" thread.

The main attraction for me, however, was the unions system. I started a union dedicated to the band Iced Earth back in late 2005, and became part of a small group of metal heads that posted regularly on the GS forums. We all had unions of our own, and were often officers in each others unions, every union dedicated to one band or another, like Iron Maiden or Metallica. Mods rarely strayed into the more obscure unions, so we could basically do whatever we wanted. We talked about metal, constantly strayed off-topic, insulted each other (in a friendly, joking manner, of course), and just generally had a great time. We basically self-regulated ourselves, and given the fact that almost everybody was an officer in each union (there were so few of us), we each had some sort of moderation capabilities, without having to notify the higher-ups at GS. It was democracy at it's finest, in a way. Anyway, it's those guys that I really miss, and my old union. We all kept each informed of the latest metal news, and kept our unions updated regularly. It was a great source of information and friendly conversation.

Back on topic, I'm pretty sure that the ps2 Graphics Synthesizer is needed for BC.  They have yet to emulate this feature in software.  Granted, full software emulation may come in a firmware update in a couple of years, but I don't think it's likely.