Europe gets different PS3 Hardware than US/Japan

http://biz.gamedaily.com/industry/feature/?id=15326

The European version of the PS3 will apparently not feature the PS2's Emotion Engine chip and will rely mainly on software to emulate PS2 compatibility. The result is that backwards compatibility will be limited compared to the U.S. and Japanese models. Some analysts see this as a positive, though. More within...

WTF? How can that possibly be a positive?

OK, I'm going to go and actually read the article, now... :P

[edit] Read it. Alex Kwiatkowski, your cheque from SCEE is in the mail! Pfft. With spin like that, the guy should be working for the government! :P

I wonder if they are still charging the same $800 - $850 for the 60GB model.

The positive reaction was from analysts who saw it as a good cost cutting move that in the long term should bring down prices.

Does this answer your question? :/
http://www.game.co.uk/lowdown.aspx?lid=7068&cm_sp=PS3-_-merchandising-_-wfpreorderltd

Damn, thats even more than I thought!!!

their basic bundle


Sony PlayStation 3 Console (60GB)
Resistance: Fall of Man
GAMEware PlayStation 3 HDMI Cable


Price $939

I think you can pre-order a bare bones system for £425, or something. £50 deposit. Guy in my local GAME reckons they have over 100 pre-orders. Not sure I believe him, TBH. :)

Hold on: £50 x 100 = £5000. I wonder what happens to the interest on this money while everyone with a pre-order is waiting for launch? :P And that's just in 1 GAME store!

F**k me Sony! What the hell are you doing??(to yourselves...)

The bind moggles. :|

"OK everyone - just throw all yer fave PS2 games in the can. Don't worry though - there'll be some great PS3 games coming, er, sometime, that you can buy from us! Yay!" :/

I'm not buying a PS3. I shall wait until launch day, then I shall rip my clothes off and rush into a shop and grab an XBox 360 off the shelf and race out the door with it - Larging all the way home with police in hot pursuit.

I am different.

Maybe the $50 is how the retailer makes a profit outside of games. I just find it amazing that they would cripple one of the systems key features in the region that the playstation brand is strongest and the Xbox never really took off, at least not as popular as it was here in the states.

Or maybe thats why they did it.

hahahahahahahahahahaah














hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

Sony Exec 1) We could make it cheaper if we remove the Emotion Engine chip.
Sony Exec 2) Ahhhhhh, but do we have to sell it cheaper?

This is the UK - we're used to getting ripped off. :P

So.... we won't really want to play our dozens of favourite and well-loved PS2 titles because the new shinier versions we can pay another $100 to play will make us forget about them?

...

"Well guys, the press is pretty bad - everyone's predicting the PS3 to flop. Underpowered, vastly over-priced... and yet there are still a few people who think we'll come good, and that the backwards compatibility that helped establish the PS2 early in the marketplace will provide a natural upgrade path.

Men, we need to crush that hope! Severely limit the PS2 compatibility, and do it now! The European territories must not find any reason whatsoever to choose us over someone else!"

98% compatibility to 'limited'. $1000 for the privilege. Sony, you've lost the last of your mind.

This is all very very old news.


No, the result will be that emulation in the long term will be greater than these initial US and Japanese models. Also cheaper prices.

Anyone currently playing a vast selection of PSX games on their PSP's via software emulation will know what a big deal this isn't.

It;s just Sony giving Europe that extra little shafting, as if being 3 months late and upto 40% more epxensive wasnt enough.

Also just because the PS3 comes out, your PS2 isn't magically going to stop working.

Of course Sony's tendency to use the cheapest possible components might, but you can fairly easily get your laser realigned, or replace those cheap plastic bits that break or wear down with normal use, with more durable aluminium parts.

Of course now that the cretins at Sony shut down Lik-Sang, getting hold of said parts is probably going to be somewhat difficult. Good thing my PS2 was stolen.

While that may be true in one sense - I'm sure the negative press WILL be a big deal and will hit Sony hard. They make decent products (I love my new Sony MP3 player), but their handling of marketing and publicity is atrocious.

Sony really are getting desperate. The ridiculous product placement advertising all throughout Casino Royale... oh dear.

I'm satisfied with my iMac, XBox 360 and Wii. No need for a PseudoPlay-, Delay-, BuyingIt?NoWay!-Station...

Yeah - makes no odds to me, TBH. I aint getting a PS3 anyway. Never even got 'round to getting a PS2.

I'd rather spend the £400 on a NeoGeo CD system with lots of games.

Take a look at this one on ebay:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/NEO-GEO-CD-CONSOLE-AND-23-ORIGINAL-RARE-GAMES_W0QQitemZ230093298212QQihZ013QQcategoryZ72503QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem


Now that wouyld go very well with my current collection. :)

Meh, no Metal Slug. :)

I can get a Abit nforce 5 sli mobo, dual core 5200+ and an GeForce 8800 GTX 768MB for the same price as an EU PS3.

I'm not convinced anything they did would generate any positive press. When the media is after you, they're after you.


Shame no one in Europe can.

Lads, just don't buy the bloody thing for a while. When they realise less than one percent of the game playing population in the UK will pay over £400 for a console they'll be tripping over themselves to slash prices within just a couple of months. There won't be enough games out to warrant buying one anyway for about another year, just save your cash and let Sony sweat.

Makepool: hear hear!

Shame the general populace isn't that smart.

Ok, I'm going to laugh at you all...

You're ALL going to get non-emotion engine PS3s! :)

http://www.playfuls.com/news_06339_How_Sony_Killed_the_PlayStation3_and_NOT_Just_in_Europe.html

we will just have to see I guess. The 360 emulates the old xbox quite well these days. It might just take a long time for compatibility with a lot of games.

I just hope they learnt something about making SDK's for developers. PS2 was a joke for the first few years of existance.

Well that pretty much did it. One of the main success formula for the PS2 was backwards compatibility. Killing that pretty much means its over now. I once had faith in the PS3, but their little downhill snowball has turned into an avalanche. I'm gonna go play some Wii Boxing now...:p

The Wii has gotten most attention out of everyone I know, seconded closely by the x360. I like both systems, but the Wii just got 70 hours use in a week, by my Girlfriend, who decided to finally play a Zelda game through.

heh if I get more than 40 total hours fun out of a game these days it goes in my favourite games of all time. Most games these days are pretty monotonous these days.

Increased costs, decreased risk. Mainstream pap all the way... There aren't many games that satisfy me anymore either - I can count them (or the brand names) on one hand.

To be honest, if I currently owned a console, backwards compatability would be well down my list of "purchasing requirements" for a new console. I'd want something that plays, looks and sounds remarkably different from anything before.

At the moment I'm rather drawn to the xbox360, but I don't like the tacky white colour of it's exterior, and nor do I trust it's noise levels - I'm not sure if later revisions have fixed this.

It seems Sony has scared off developers with it's complex system architecture - but who knows, maybe developers will 'see the light' and start to move towards it.

I'm not sure about the Wii - it seems they've focused on the user interaction more than anything, and being the pessimist I am, I predict lots of Wii components starting to fail just outside of their warranty...

I want to see how this console war plays out over a few months.

The newer units have replaced the original DVD drive with a BenQ drive that is supposedly MUCH quieter. If you can wait until they release the 65nm version of the Xbox, I'm sure it'll be even quieter yet.

From what I've read though, with the new drive the unit is very quiet as is.

It hasn't - any developers raising issues about the PS3 (I'm looking at you, Valve) are in bed with Microsoft anyway.


PS2 wins.

Hehe, Sony is quite probably going to bomb, not laughed so much since, well, I haven't laughed so much! ;O)

Looks like rootkit revenge - karma, you just got to love it really.

Heh, but wouldn't it be funny if all the trashing talking we're doing to the PS3 actually works out for Sony and it ends up being successful after all..?

Believe me, they haven't. Mine makes a sound like a 747 taking off, and is vastly louder than my PC, which itself was by far the noisiest beast I've ever owned. For a week or so I actually thought there was something wrong with my 360 because of how much noise it makes. Then I heard a friend's and his sounds exactly the same.

One of the most recent revisions of the 360 actually has a much more quiet DVD-ROM drive installed into it compared to the launch edition......problem is knowing which 360 at the store is of said revision.

Me, I'm personally waiting for the rumoured Xenon before plunking down cash on a 360.

They were supposed to have a live update for the 360 that has better DVD speed control to keep the noise down. Don't know if that update happened yet since I don't own one, but it was mentioned in a lot of the gaming news recently.

Haven't used mine in a week, so I'll get online with it over the weekend and see if there's anything available. Mine is definitely one of the latest revisions though, I checked.