Gear

New PS3 Model Has Bigger Hard Drive, Still Awfully Expensive

For the holidays, Sony is releasing a standalone Playstation 3 with a 320 GB hard drive, retailing $350. The same PS3 with a Playstation Move controller, Eye camera and Sports Champions game will cost $400; a standalone unit with a 160 GB hard drive costs $300. The extra hard drive space is purportedly for games, […]

For the holidays, Sony is releasing a standalone Playstation 3 with a 320 GB hard drive, retailing $350. The same PS3 with a Playstation Move controller, Eye camera and Sports Champions game will cost $400; a standalone unit with a 160 GB hard drive costs $300.

The extra hard drive space is purportedly for games, video and other content distributed over the Playstation Network, but I've got to say that I agree with this Playstation Blog commenter:

You know I understand that with DLC content increasing at an alarming rate, we do need the extra space. What I don’t understand is why you don’t just keep all systems across the board with the same amount of memory and have consistent price drops (as technology gets cheaper) instead? 160GB would be ample space for most owners and for those who do a lot more downloading, I’m sure those are the people fully capable and comfortable swapping out hard drives. Honestly if I were a basic user, I’d prefer to spend $300 for a 160GB PS3 than spend $350 for a 320GB. It also causes more confusion for many “non gamer” types. What is the difference? Hard drive size. Really? That’s it?

Many other commenters point out that it's easy to upgrade the internal hard drive of the PS3, making the savings relative to the 160 GB model nominal. On its own, the Move Starter Pack (controller, camera, game) costs $100.

Meanwhile, Nintendo's offering bundled units at steep discounts and Microsoft Xbox is selling Kinects and new Xboxes like crazy. Either Sony's margins don't permit a price drop or they think they're fine with the price points they have.

Offering a new package with a bigger hard drive makes sense if you're cutting prices across the board. All this does is make the high-end bundle with the Move controller look like a marginally better deal.

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