Think about it. PS3 is by far the most cheaply upgradeable gaming system ahead of 360 and PC. Depending on where you shop you can find an HDD at less than $0.25/gig, unlike the $0.80+/gig HDDs that 360 uses. And without an HDD already installed there's no need to go through the hassle of data transfer using an external enclosure. Plus the lower price point would obviously be more appealing to the average consumer.

What happens when you bring that Hard drive less PS3 home and put in a game that has a mandatory install? People are going to be pissed

I think Sony should release a heavily gimped, $199.99 ps3 right before the holidays just to fuck with Microsoft. That would be very comical.

/thread

how are you going to install the games?
microsoft is screwing over people with that thing called arcade, sooner or later you have to buy the expensive HDD. unless you don't play the console.

You cant? The HDD cost to sony is like $5 or less.. so why exclude it?

Well like you said, harddrives are cheap, so whats the point in having a 120GB console for $299 and a 0GB console for $279...... No one is going to buy the driveless console.

Those drives are so cheap for Sony.... There's no point in leaving it out.

Doesn't seem to be stopping people from buying it. And if not an hdd-less version than a very small hdd like 10 gigs.

@Leo I thought the mark up was a bit more than that. Like $25-35

Believe it or not it would be more expensive to put in a 10GB harddrive compared to a 120GB. No company that I know of still makes 10GBs, so Sony would have to open a line just to make them, which is obviously more expensive then just throwing a very common cheap drive.

But all games to date still play on the Arcade, even if certain features don't work.

If SCE sold a PS3 w/o HDD, it would essentially be an "incomplete" console. Sure, it would be clearly marked as such, but you would still see a fair amount of returns from ignorant consumers who just took a look at the $199 price tag and assumed (not unreasonably for a console) it would play all PS3 games out of the box.

Virtually nothing on the PS3 works without a HDD.

Not that I wouldn't be all for it personally. The prospect of a another 500GB PS3 for less than $300 would be pretty tempting if I had a third display to play with.