The 60GB PAL version is discontinued, so that leaves only the 40GB model to PAL regions. 60GB is available only as long as it sells out. I don't know about the NTSC versions.

John Lucas wrote pretty good about "the Playstation legacy", it's something that Sony have been keeping important up to this point.

There's also one more thing, that makes BC important to PS2 owners; the failure rate of PS2. If you have a broken PS2 (there are a lot of those) and games you still want to play, or you want to play some of the new PS2 games, you have to buy the PS2 again. And PS2 and Wii combined still cost less than the 40GB PS3. And by buying the Wii, you have access to GC games as well as Wii games. But by buing the (40GB) PS3, you can have access only to PS3 games.

And as someone asked, people DID complain about SNES not having NES compatibility. Gamers always want the backwards compatibility.

You're right libellule BC is not that important anymore.

As I see it the 40Go is not only a cheaper PS3 more people will be able to afford, but first and foremost a BR player (thus Spiderman 3 bundle).

My feeling is that with this SKU Sony is aiming essentially at people who want a HD player for their HDTV. Price range for HD-DVD players is 200$ up to 450$. Let's face it when confronted with a choice between a HD-DVD player that is just a player and the 40Go PS3 (BR player, console, Internet Browser, media station) the latter looks like a very good bargain .

""" And as someone asked, people DID complain about SNES not having NES compatibility. Gamers always want the backwards compatibility."""

==> NO
only hardcore gamers that played to NES.

Now, plenty of gamers that are PS2 owners too are casual.
When PES2008 is released, they want to play PES2008, not PES2004/5/6/7 ...

Too many people of VGChartz consider themselves as an average gamers,
I think you should not.

"""As I see it the 40Go is not only a cheaper PS3 more people will be able to afford, but first and foremost a BR player (thus Spiderman 3 bundle). """

==> YES
but
remember the PES2008 bundle the 15 november (at least in PAL)
then sales will tell us if BC is important or not.
Remember also the MGS4 bundle next year.

The 40gb is not here to sell the PS3, it is here to :
1/ limit the Xbox360 sales by saying to the gamers :
"no you dont have an Xbox360 since the PS3 is cheaper, and if u cannot afford it right now, just wait for the next price drop"
2/ prepare the terran for next big releases 2007-08 :
ratchet/cod4/unchartred/UT3/MGS4 etc ..

It is at this moment that we will see if people care about BC or not.

Why do I keep seeing people mention this? If the 40 GB PS3 starts selling like gangbusters, MS will react within days and simply lower the prices of all their skus to maintain a price advantage across all three Xbox 360 skus. As it is right now $399 gets a person a 40 GB PS3 with Spiderman 3 or $399 can get a Premium Xbox 360 w/HDMI including Marvel Ultimate Alliance, Forza 2, and a third game depending on the retailer (Best Buy/FutureShop Canada - Guitar Hero II, Dell.ca - Halo 3). The gaming deals that are going to become available over the next 2-months are going to be incredible.

@Libellule: As i said, it's what gamers want. The "average gamer" buys new PS2, since it has a lot of cheap good games, or they buy Wiis since it has fun games and is "hot" right now. "Average gamer" isn't going to spend 450 Euros to a console. Especially when it doesn't even have games.

PS3 will sell good at least for a moment, because of the pricecut, ending 60GB and a cheaper SKU, so it doesn't really tell us how it will sell in the long term.
The 40GB model, along with new 360 SKU, makes the 360 start to look like "the ultimate multimedia center" -the same thing that has sold PS3 so far.
If Sony would have really wanted to offer cheaper SKU for gamers, they should have dropped the Blu-Ray and make BC work better.

Dropping the Blu-ray is a complete impossibility, as that would render EVERY PS3 game released thus far unplayable.

A second opinion from a friend:

IMO PS2 backwards compatibility is important, at least for a few dozen high profile games, especially the God of War games were great for me (works great on my PAL PS3).

But we aren't all the same, we all have different preferences. The entry price is far more important to some, IMO ideally Sony keeps selling two SKUs (one low priced entry model, with core additional features like Blu-Ray and harddrive, and one high end model with all the bells and whistles), at least until proper software emulation is added for the higher profile games. It looks like we are well underway to see a slimline PS3 being released next year, I think they could take out Wi-Fi for an entry model as well (but IMO providing a model with all the extras should be provided as well).

libellule said: men, men man, the fact to reach the 400$ price without BC is the better move made by Sony this generation. The 40gb is cheaper than a Xbox360 Elite. I m not gona argue it is better or not. I just say the PS3 offer is really cheaper than before and closer to the Xbox360 offer. The question : is BC important ?? I saied to you : NO The potential PS3 owner are PS2 owners, they dont care of BC since they already have a PS2. I will say it differently : people care about BC it is always better to have BC. BUT IF THE PS3 DOESN'T SUPPORT BC, they will still buy the PS3 IF THEY WANT TO BUY A PS3 !! now the question : WHY DO YOU WANT THE PS3 ?? BECAUSE of the PS3 games !!

Jesus me and Onna have said it a gazillion times!!! a) Many people don't want lots of consoles in their entertainment center and b) PS2 looks like SHIT on HDTV's and with the PS3's upscaling things would be MUCH better, also the fact that PS2's die rather easy is not helping... at all!