With the announcement of the release of the new 40 GB Playstation 3 model by Sony Computer Entertainment comes the question, where was this aggressively priced $699.95AUD price tag at the Playstation 3’s official launch? But with this new exciting axe Sony has taken to the price of this new PS3 model brings cut backs, will the lowered price and a cut back on features increase sales?

The new 40 GB PS3 model that’s $300 cheaper than the $999.95 RRP 60 GB model seems to be a great buy for what looks like a sacrifice of 20 Gigabytes of hard drive space, BUT Sony has made a few more sacrifices on features according to consumer research that has been conducted. This research has resulted in the cut back on USB ports from 4 down to 2 and the removal of the multi memory card port, “fair enough” one says Sony’s just saving money on parts.

One of the most perplexing cuts from the new models feature list is the ability to play Playstation 2 games. Where did Sony do this research one asks, obviously not with anyone who has owned a Playstation before. Cutting out backwards compatibility is like saying your favourite movie is too old and we couldn’t be bothered re-digitalizing to a new format. This never happens with movies, if a new format is released the wave of older generation movies follow onto that particular format, so why has this happened in the gaming industry?

This no backwards compatibly trend seems to be growing, this was first seen when Microsoft released their Xbox 360 console back in 2006 when they only made certain original Xbox titles available for play. This created a minor stir but no one really cared because Halo was on that list. So if this trend continues you might need a bigger television unit to store your Playstation’s 2 to 10, each Xbox model and maybe an asteroids machine or something.

Interestingly enough is Sony’s current 60GB Playstation 3 deal of a 60GB console, 2 SIX-AXIS controllers, Motor storm and Resistance Fall of Man all in one package for $998.00AUD. The question still remains why wouldn’t you get this brilliant deal than buy a 40GB model with cut down features and if you wanted a couple of games and an extra controller you’d be up for about the same amount.

So has this launch of a 40GB Playstation 3 model been all in vain? The answer to that is NO. If you are brand new to gaming with a Playstation by all means buy the entry level console and if the lack of hard drive space is a problem, no need to worry there either, pop down to your local computer store and pick up a 200GB 2.5” SATA hard drive. BUT if you are a dedicated Playstation fan go for $998.00 deal and you’ll get the great value for money of the deal and the satisfaction of some game title backwards compatibility.