No 80GB PS3 for Europe News

Makes sense I suppose. given the huge broadband conenctions available there.

200GB would make more sense if they plan to release a larger model, especially considering games like Warhawk and SOCOM will be downloadable.

What's the point? Surely this will just keep manufacturing costs high as they'll still have two versions to make.

They won't relaunch the PS3 until the rumble controller is ready.

@Stormflood

Are 200gb hard drives available that fit in the PS3 available yet?

Ah, they obviously sellotaped the 20gb drives to the 60gb ones to get rid of them.

The extra 20GB is really neither here nor there. That 412 Euro price tag on the other hand, sounds very attractive!

So a press release announcing the launch of the 80GB model in Europe to be revealed next week then?

Who cares - where is my Blu-Ray free cheapo PS3?

wow- that WAS quick!

You'll have this model in Europe once existing stock is sold through.

It's as cheap for Sony to make this unit now as it is to make a 60GB unit. The only reason Europe or the US isn't seeing it immediately is because there's still 60GB stock in those areas to be sold.

Not really a bid deal is it?
If you want one, just replace your current one with a larger one.

Good observation Gizmo :-)

I don't see why this amount of space is needed. I've never used more than a gig of my 360 hard drive. I just download stuff and then delete it once I've watched it/don't want it anymore. I know there's that TV on demand thing in the States, but if I really want a TV show in a format I can keep I'll get it on DVD.

LOL @ gizmo!!

When did Sony Europe know **** what happens at Sony?

I'll wait for a reliable source.

They get it for 412 euros.

No fair.

Haha, 20Gigs more and over 180 Euros cheaper than over here!
I just can't believe this shit, Sony is basically handing over the business key for Europe to the big fat cat called M$.

The price difference is practically enough to warrant the flight to South Korea to pick up one of these.

@Skeletor

You would think so, but M$ are not doing very well in main land Europe... Maybe they are handing it over to Nintendo :)

The PS3 seems to use around 13 GB of HDD space for the system so in effect adding a 80 GB HDD just means that the console really will have 60 GB available to use! LOL

Seriously though, it doesn't bother me nor should it anyone else as you can pick up 120 GB HDD pretty cheap (less than the cost of the overpriced Xbox 360 one anyway) if you need more space. I've already fitted a 160 GB HDD in my PS3... it cost me £70.

It's shenanigans like this that put me off getting a PS3. I don't want to subsidise the rest of the world getting better, cheaper PS3s. :(

ProtoformX - "I don't see why this amount of space is needed. I've never used more than a gig of my 360 hard drive. I just download stuff and then delete it once I've watched it/don't want it anymore. I know there's that TV on demand thing in the States, but if I really want a TV show in a format I can keep I'll get it on DVD."

You're forgetting that the PS3 has an HDD as standard and therefore games tend to use it more than they do on the 360 for caching or installing data to speed up loading times. Although most games offer these "installs" as an option, some don't, e.g. Oblivion installs 4.5 GB to the HDD the first time you play it without any prompting so you can imagine that if other games do this then your 60 GB HDD is soon going to be full before you even start downloading "arcade" games and game content. Home for example is said to use 0.5 GB so it all starts to add up. Obviously, it's not a problem if you only play two or three games at a time or don't intend downloading anything at all.

80GB? Meh.

If I want more capacity, I'll buy myself a much bigger drive than that.

"Who cares - where is my Blu-Ray free cheapo PS3"

It's being released soon. Called a '360 Elite' I believe...

80Gb for less than a 60gb here...They continue to urinate upon us from a great height.

christ almighty!! ...shut the fuck up about the price...shut the fuck up about not wanting blu-ray...and shut the fuck up about the lack of rumble!!!
*takes big intake of breath*
it is getting on my tits now lads...on topic,YOU CAN BUY A SATA 250 GIG HDD and PLUG IT INTO THE PS3 IF YOU LIKE!!!!!!
*feels sharp pain in left arm*
......

Man somebody needs a warm bath and a nice bar of indulgent chocolate.

@seedaripper
Why? Why looking away and pretending everyting is fine when the nice people at Sony EU are screwing us big time. Let them know every time news like this pops up. Huge price difference is part of the news btw. If you can't take the heat, get the fuck out of the kitchen, mate.

"The PS3 seems to use around 13 GB of HDD space for the system"

Heck, no wonder the 20gb model didn't sell very well!

@seedaripper
Hey man, 20gig is nothing Sony just took opportunity to upgrade a little bit, and I'm sure that will be the replacement for the 60gig. Real news is the price. And if Sony sold at that price here they wouldn't have to moan about lack of sales - they'd be moaning about lack of production capacity. I read over the weekend that Europe is the main console battleground - so why screw us on price? Because they can and we have no choice as they put up false barriers to make importing unattractive.
The other way they screw us here is by claiming it won't be available here, cos they want us to clear the old stock for them first, with no sweetener.
As its so easy to put in a 200gig, and the price difference is minimal, why don't they? Because ther're saving that for later to make it look like they're giving us something.
Its all about the money....

i would answer to the guys up top...but its difficult typing this on my psp on the way to the hospital with a suspected heart attack...
;)

"welcome to the grown up world where the wealthier countries pay more money for similar products in less wealthier countries."

...except that's a load of rubbish isn't it. America has a higher average income than Europe, yet the US PS3 costs about €450 while the European one costs €599.

@tag51

"As its so easy to put in a 200gig, and the price difference is minimal, why don't they?"

When you making a loss on every console you sell, and you are selling millions of them over the loss making years, you can't just chuck even a few dollars around the place.

Its all very well describing the price difference as "minimal", but its actually more in the region of $40. I'll leave you work out the actual increase in cost to Sony if they took that hit on two million units sold (made up number for example, so please don't anyone bore me to suicide by complaining they've sold more/less than that).

"Its all about the money...."

Well of course it is. Thats business. Its always about money, otherwise why would they bother? If companies didn't consider money they would go out of business, which would means no consoles and no games for any of us. I know we like to think that some game corps do it for the love of gamers and games, but that is pure fantasy.

@chupachups

"...except that's a load of rubbish isn't it. America has a higher average income than Europe, yet the US PS3 costs about €450 while the European one costs €599."

You need top expand on your figures somewhat (and maybe give some links too). Average pay is not an indicator of the wealth of the overall populace, in fact its probably the least reliable guide if taken in isolation. As it happens America has one of the greatest rich/poor divides of any developed country.

Just one of many links out there.

http://multinationalmonitor.org/mm2003/0...

@ Kangarootoo

Sorry man, but you are wrong. Not all of Europe is as high-paid as UK, but still the PS3 costs as much if not more than the UK

Greece, for example, or Cyprus, where the median Salary was £774 (admittedly in 2003, but still)
http://www.circa.europa.eu/irc/dsis/regp...

To elaborate more, the PS3 is 350 Cy Pounds, so it costs almost half a paycheck to the median!

But you have to understand that the median means not much, as nost paid workers are below it, and some are quite above it, as happens in all countries, but even if, say, all were getting the median, then you still need to eat, to pay rent, clothes, travel expenses, perhaps to raise your family.

All this come out of those 770, so to spend half of it on a console is too much!

(plus in the rest of europe there are countries worse off than Cyprus, so don't think everyone is like the UK)

@kangarootoo

First, it might be $40 to us, not to Sony.
Second, Sony is losing money as it needed to ship more PS3s, which it aims to achieve by selling at higher cost in Europe? With higher volume comes a much lower production cost.
I'm not expecting anybody to do this for love, that was my point. Sony only make these decisions about money and volume, but when they make these decisions they take a conscious decision to screw Europe. Then come the arguments about PAL etc - which hardly applies to other products like PSPs, but they too had the price differential. Sony had a choice to be more competetive in Europe and could have cleaned up. They chose not to and so Joe Consumer decided to wait until the price comes down.
Then games studios are saying if the volume doesn't go up they will switch development to Wii. That would really help Sony. Get the price down, volume up, then follows a large quantity of, hopefully, decent games. Sony were greedy and now its hurting them.

@Egster
You do know that they mean South Korea right, smartarse?
Ever heard of any Eastern European countries? Yes, that's Europe too. Incredible, isn't it...
I also wouldn't be so sure about the oh so high income in countries like Italy or Spain...

80GB probably because the HDD manufacturer dropped 60GB drives?

Don't see the reason, 20GB is hardly enough if you use the "higher bandwidth" reasoning?

It don't know why some people are whining. The cost of making a 80Gig drive obviously came down, probably to the point where its cheaper to make 80Gigs than 60 Gigs.

@ Old skool

PS3 Europe = 600 Euro
PS3 Corea = 412 Euro

Do you get it NOW?

@rock27gr

"Sorry man, but you are wrong. Not all of Europe is as high-paid as UK, but still the PS3 costs as much if not more than the UK"

I don't believe I ever said that was the case. I simply made the point that average wage was not a reliable guide to overall wealth among the populace of a country. And I certainly didn't say that the UK was better or worse off than any other country in Europe. The initial comparison was made between the US and "other countries" unspecified. So I'm not sure we really disagree, do we?


@tag51

"First, it might be $40 to us, not to Sony."

Oh come on man, I even went to bother of writing "made up number for example" to avoid this sort of thing. How much it costs is not really the point. I am just suggesting that whatever the cost, and however small it might appear, you have to consider it in the context of adding that cost onto a (at poijnt of sale) loss making unit that you are expecting to sell in the millions.

Even $5 is a hell of a lot of cash to add on in that context. Businesses have factors of safety in their cash flow prediction as a matter of course, that doesn't mean they can just glibly say "lets just chuck in a bigger drive, it will only cost us an extra $X million over the next few years". If my money was invested in a company that was happy to do that sort of thing I would be worried.

"Sony were greedy and now its hurting them."

Whether that is true or not I think its a good example of what we are actually talking about. In fact I think you are saying that you think the move would actually benefit them in the end as a PR exercise. I would agree with you on that (as improving a package for no increase in customer cost is almost always good PR) if there were no other issues to consider.

Its just in this case I don't think they really have a choice. The initial suggestion made was that "As its so easy to put in a 200gig, and the price difference is minimal, why don't they?". In this case I simply don't think the price difference is as minimal as it might appear at first, and that Sony couldn't afford to just bung in a bigger drive without being (rightly says I) accused of taking ludicrous risks with their shareholders money.

All in all, they are pretty experienced at this sort of thing, so if they hold off on super sized drive options for a while, we can probably assume that is a wise thing to do. Anyway, we can always buy a larger drive ourselves and bung the existing one on eBay, so its not like we are without options in that regard. I realise that for those wanting a 200GB drive it would be cheaper if Sony bundled one for a cost increase, but they have to play to the majority market as any console maker has to at launch (where costs and risks are both at their highest).

@ Kangarootoo

Hmmm, well, if we don't dissagree than we must be agreeing!

And it's me who is saying that UK is much better off than many EU countries. If I were to chose to stay here, I know I could start off with a nice salary of 22k, wereas if I go back to my country I'd be lucky to get 10k.

Sure life is more expensive here, but when the PS3 (the point of this discyssion) is the same (almost) price in UK and in most of Europe with their lower income, then it clearly is overpriced not because of the relative wealth, but because Sony gets away with it.

And I would think South Korea is a more wealthy place than most of Europe.

Oh enough already! Too expensive for you? Don't buy it. Don't like it? Don't buy it.

IMHO it's worth it's current price tag if you factor in all it can do. Don't want all it can do? Don't buy it!

@Skeletor
"If you can't take the heat, get the fuck out of the kitchen, mate."

And applying similar logic to this sound piece of reasoning, "If you don't like the price of a console, ffs stop complaining about it and just buy a different one".

@rock27gr
"And I would think South Korea is a more wealthy place than most of Europe."
I don't think so, and I think the fact so many things still get made in China/Taiwan/Korea is because labour is so cheap. But I'm not 100%

"All this come out of those 770, so to spend half of it on a console is too much!"
Americans are spending more than half, average US wage weekly: $810
Console: $600

EDIT: Just realised thats about the same as for me, less than quarter since I'm guessing the 770 was monthly? Dang you're getting screwed :)

Anyhoo - half a weeks (or even a weeks) wages for something that does all the PS3 does and will last you at least 3-5+ years, maybe longer?

Fucking bargain!

Aaaaand another thing:

I can't afford a TVR. No I mean REALLY can't afford one. That's a product that's sold with a MASSIVE markup too.

All those whingers: can you TRULY not afford a PS3? Is it REALLY such a big ask? I mean, it's being sold at a considerable LOSS and you're STILL moaning?

Sheesh - can't think of any other genre fans that would MOAN about a cutting edge product being sold at a loss. Fucking gamers, eh?

@rock27gr & kangarootoo

Ok Greece average salary is = 600 Euros
PS3 price is = 600 Euros

Now go ahead and tell me if hating Sony as much as I do is so wrong o.O
Ofc they will look after Koreans and all the sharpeyes from over there. That doesn't mean I have to put up with it. I just let them be and have nothing to do with their products. If they want to treat their ppl I have no reason to partisipate in such an overpriced piece of shit like a PS3. Thank you.

@Overlush
Dude what are you talking about? If they loose money then why the fack do they even bother? you thnk that Sony will be loosing money out of it? No cause that's not Sony. Even MS lost so much money but who gives a shit? Just cause they loose money I have to go buy it without talking about the price? you cant be serious man.

@davisorle
"Dude what are you talking about? If they loose money then why the fack do they even bother? you thnk that Sony will be loosing money out of it? No cause that's not Sony. Even MS lost so much money but who gives a shit? Just cause they loose money I have to go buy it without talking about the price? you cant be serious man."

Dude you're an idiot. Sony is losing money on each PS3 because they make up the money on a % on each game sold. Thats how its always worked before, doesn't mean you have to buy it without talking about the price, but realise that you are getting a lot of bang for your buck. Whether you end up using all of it is a different matter.

"Ofc they will look after Koreans and all the sharpeyes from over there."
And a racist.