I stick to my point about a memory card reader, it's extreamly useful as it's far easier to take an SD card out of a camera and stick it into a card reader instead of messing around with cables and networks to get it to work.

Good Tech is simple and straightforward. Thats why SD cards are such a success.

Sure I can do it the more complex ways but I'm sure less tech savy people won't, and I would prefer not to go to that much effort to do something very simple.

They should of left a single SD card reader at least.
So I hope this part of the rumor isn't true

@ vengi )

you can just connect the camera to the PS3 via usb .. that's even more straightforward and every camera released within the last 2-3 years should feature usb

Backwards compatibility or the lack there of is something that most Sony fans will flat out refuse to believe. Even if this new machine launches, and that is burned into the packaging. They will insist that Sony can patch in backwards compatibility. The reality however might be that it is a true physical limitation of this system. There is no programming law that says the Cell can do everything any other chip designed before could do only better. Perhaps those legacy chips are absolutely required. Perhaps they were designed in such a way that the Cell could not physically replicate the processes.

From what I've been reading, I don't think Sony will manage to do it in software, ever. The EE is difficult enough to emulate, which is proven by the number of games which don't work properly in the 80 GB/European version. The GS probably can't be emulated well enough for Sony to include that in this version of the PS3. PS2 emulators on the PC require very good graphics cards and still don't work well.

Sony certainly has a quality threshold which won't be crossed with GS emulation.

They could always do PS2 pure software emulation later if not at launch. It is something they could use for the PS4 as well, so I would imagine they think it is a worthwhile investment.

Chrome Strip... Who cares

Memory card reader... Some will care but whatever portable device you have will have a USB port and you have a cord so that's void.

Smaller 40GB hard drive... Did you forget this is the PlayStation 3? The hard drive comes in as many flavors as you want. 20 up until 250 for internal. Or hook up an external one 500 or 750.  This isn't like 360 where you get twenty or 120 and pay ridiculous prices for either one.

USB Ports.  There are USB Multi-taps where you can have one and turn it into two or four so that's done

Etherner cable included... Is that seriously a gripe?  I'm not even going to respond to that

The only important thing that is missing is the backwards compatability.  It does kind of suck that you can't play PS2 games but most people (100 million or so) have a PS2 and soon enough it'll be obsolete so that really doesn't matter. 

In conclusion, the new 400 price point is perfect for me, I was waiting for it to be compratively priced vs. the 360 and now that it is, I'm buying it.   Yay 4 me!

HDMI cables are worth about $3 to consumers (and cost about $1 to manufacturers. Component cables are slightly more expensive, but still very cheap. There's little reason Sony would refuse to include an ethernet cable, something that literally costs them approximately $0.25 to include.

I mean, it's nice that MS doesn't try to rip you off with no HDMI cable, which some bastard companies actually do, but it's something that costs them about $1. So it doesn't exactly make the elite significantly more valuable. Neither does the new heatsink, because the elites still fail at a very high rate.

For PS2 owners, who had been able to exchange their PS2 as $100 credit toward the PS3 many times in the past, this is just as expensive as the 80GB version will be since they can't get that credit without throwing away their current library. 

see what you're saying about not having backwwards compatibility but £299 - damn thats gonna sell s lot, i'm in the uk - have a wii and x360 (i'd also have a ps3 but for the wife it's a lot to get her to agree to) but for £299 I'd get one and i'm sure a lot of other people would also.

I think this is a smart move by Sony and may just get them back in the game

That's a very good point, and one that I hadn't thought about before. Most PS2 owners won't be interested in this model at all!