I find it funny how people say that Sony lied. Did Sony Launch with BC? Yes. Can you still get a PS3 with BC? Yes.
Now people have the option to get a cheaper PS3 if BC isn't a concern of yours.

I wonder where that $100 difference comes from? Maybe the $100 for a 360 20GB drive so the Core(cheapest, no BC 360 SKU) can have BC. Did MS set the price for BC?

Nah, that makes too much sense.

Yes, but in all the regions where the 40GB has been announced, it will soon be the ONLY model available. Once the BC models currently existing are gone, they're gone for good. It remains to be seen if this will happen in North America, but it is certainly likely...

One of the key design features of DirectX is that it acts as a hardware abstraction layer. Essentially, a Direct3D driver was generated for the GPU on the XBox and most games interfaced with the graphics hardware through this generic driver. On the XBox 360 a very similar Direct3D driver can be generated for the XBox 360's GPU. This means that the only problem that Microsoft faced was emulating an x86 processor on a PowerPC processor while maintaining performance (which isn't an easy task).

The PS2 (unfortunately) had very poor tools initially and most developers developed their own interface to the PS2's GPU which makes it (nearly) impossible to create a generic interface on the PS3's GPU which functions the same as the PS2's GPU. Basically, this means that the CPU and GPU of the PS2 both have to be emulated on the Cell which simply doesn't have enough processing power to handle both while maintaining decent performance.

Bad PR is obnoxious and makes me despise the company behind the system, but if the PS3 has a ton of good 2008 releases I'll consider it an awesome system.  While I will likely have chosen 360 over PS3 by then (I'm not likely to buy both -- I don't have enough time to dedicate to games to justify that), bad PR alone can't sink a system if it is a solid, quality system and has awesome games.

The games make the system, of course.  You can throw away words like "cell" and "Blu Ray" -- the bottom line is that, aside from basic reliability which is assumed for all systems except the 360, a system is as good as the software on it.  Period.  The 360 gets negative points here for low hardware quality.

I don't give a sh*t about BC now on the PS3. Its current-gen now, and when it means current gen I mean PS3, 360, Wii. If you want to play PS2 games then stay in last gen. Don't complain about the PS3 lacks BC for PS2 games. Just play the PS2 and stay there. PS3 is for current gen games, whatever you like now for the PS3 get it. If you see no games for the PS3 you like then why purchase the PS3 and all you going to do is play PS2 games. Just wait till enough PS3 games come out that the user likes and then purchase the console.

Thats what I'm doing. I'm waiting for MGS4 and FFXIII comes out and then I'm going to make the purchase on the PS3.

I'll never understand why people like to wait on over hyped games before buying a console.

@grandmaster192

Because its whack to purchase a console that doesn't have games at the begining. Thats why I want a PS3 because the future does have some good games as far as FFXIII and GT and MGS4. I'm just waiting to see what these games do for the market and if they do something then I see that these truly were sysetm sellers and I will buy the system.

I don't want to purchase a console knowing that the future isn't promising. But then again knowing and looking forward to these games is what keeps my hype for the console alive.

Going along with that, the price of a console can only go down so the longer you can wait, odds are the less money you have to spend later.

Also, those "great" games out now aren't going anywhere.  You'll still find them on Amazon or what not in 6 months.  I know I personally would rather buy a console when I can fully enjoy it, not let it sit for a couple months collecting dust until the games I really want come out.

There are right reasons and wrong reasons to buy a console.  If you're just going to be twiddling your thumbs for 3 months waiting for the games you really want to play to come out, you're looking at the wrong reason.  If you've already got a large list of games you'd love to play, you're looking at the right reason.

@W29

Just because it's current gen, it doesn't mean people do not like playing old games. I get a PS3 with BC because it is important if my PS2 ever breaks in the future after they stop the production of it. I don't want my PS2 games to ever become obsolete. It's a great thing to have 1 console do all generation of games, rather than placing a PS2 and PS3 together, hogging up all the space. It may not be important to some people, but it may also be important to others. Taking out specs and then selling it for a lower price, it's not really a "price cut", it's a "pricing". When 60gig dropped to $499, that was a price cut since all the specs are the same but selling $100 less than originally.

It's a bit ironic that Sony introduced BC to the gaming market with the PS2 (to the point where the GC was bashed for not having N64 BC.) Now they're removing it when the Wii has GC support and the X360 (kinda) has XBox support.

I assume Sony is trying to program a PS2 emulator and will release it as a future update. And of course will give another flip-flop PR statement about how awesome BC is and that every next gen system NEEDS it. But for now they'll wave their hands and say "NO ONE CARES ABOUT BC!"

The only factor going for Sony is that it's been a year since the PS3 came out, giving costumers, developers and retailers time to switch systems or burn their PS2 library to get a PS3, since BC "isn't important." Oh well.