early? slim version always come at the third or fourth year.

Really ?

Well, it seems maybe early to me due to the 10 years plan.

@kowenicki

Playstation brand?

no, but its not dead, a brand that can sell a console at $599 & can sell a console despite being so much higher in price (when it was $499).........that brand is nowhere near dead or weak

consoles in the past with similar pricing strategy's have failed to cross 5 million forget where PS3 is now

PS2 shipped MORE than PS3 & Xbox 360 last quarter

so I will say the Playstation brand is still powerful, & nowehere near dead at all

I don't think Sony needed to make a slim per se. What they needed to do was make a machine they could sell at $299 without killing the company in the process. To make an economically viable $299 PS3 there were component modifications they needed to make and that meant making smaller parts that carried out the same functions. They could have easily put all the space saving components in a Phat shell and shipped a whole lot of Japanese air around the world and the $299 120Gig Phat would have sold very well. But why export air when it takes up so much space and ends up costing you money? They'll be able to cram at least 20% more slims into a shipping container than Phats, that's an expense worth saving. If there is a sudden shortage of PS3s in a market they will be able to airfreight an urgent re-supply at a much lower cost.

Yep they probably could have introduced an economically viable $299 Phat now and then done the Slim in a year's time. But doing the Slim as soon as you have the capability makes more financial sense. Maybe they wouldn't have made a slim quite so soon if they were in 2nd or 1st place, but they probably only brought it forward by a year which is hardly a big deal.

And besides when you bring out a slim you get a whole lot of people who bought a phat to go buy another brand new machine that does exactly the same thing (assuming you don't own a launch 60Gig). I'm picking a good 5% of current PS3 owners are gonna pick themselves up a slim before the end of the year. That's 1 million PS3's sold to people who already own a PS3.

@binary

why would 5% people with a more superior PS3 & better looking one buy the slim?

please explain

count me in for one of those million lol I do love the look, and thats enough for me. Current owners will be buying it for many reasons, Annoying brothers hogging, old systems failing or even a status symbol to friends, we all know at least one friend who has to have everything.

@kowenicki

it sounds stupid doesn't it

@kowenicki

tombstone = death

what are you talking about again?

Akiba, don't take the tombstone reference too seriously.   it is Penny Arcade and it is about humour.

sorry, for a moment then i really thought you where discusing my 360, They had to cheapen the price so you've got to expect some things missing from the origional, i personally preffer the finish, the scraches on my PS3 are really annoying now (I wonder if you can t cut it?) i prefere the view front on I never like the silver part on the origional where you insert the disc but then again the look isnt for everyone, nothing in this world is