The Sony Press Conference was arguably as impressive as the Microsoft one (which was a huge surprise, by the way). Many PlayStation fans were ecstatic about the upcoming Sony Motion Controller and there was one last thing that they were hoping for: a price cut for the PS3. It didn’t happen of course. So, what happened to the PS3 Slim rumors?
Apparently nothing, but don’t dismiss it quite yet. For one, big price cuts usually come at the end of the year. Secondly, while Sony is fighting to get some market share, it would be really dumb to announce a cost-reduced version coming later in the year. In all likelihood, Sony will avoid talking about any cost-reduction to avoid stalling the sales of current PS3 models.
And because Sony doesn’t want to alienate their retail partners, they will probably help them sell current models before an upcoming one shows up, so keep your eyes open for stocking/availability issues. We’re not confirming that the PS3 slim exists – it is just a rumor- but it is about certain that eventually the PS3 price will come down. It is a matter of when.
But let’s come back on the rumor for a bit. Based on the sheer look of the leaked packaging, we did not buy it, I mean, it is seemingly too ugly to be a real Sony product. But during the show, some usually informed people told us that if you look closely to the leaked packaging, you would see that we’re going away from the Spiderman font and back to the PS2 typography. It’s true that the “PlayStation” type on the leaked package goes away from the Spiderman font and gets closer to the PlayStation font used in PS2 boxes. Some take that as a hint that Sony is going away from riding the movie hype and pushing Blu-Ray (which has since won the HD optical war) and back to its core gaming values.
In the end, E3 is way too early in the year to expect such a radical move from Sony. In that context, it seems weird that Sony would work on the packaging so soon. Note that there’s no way to know if this is a Sony packaging. If this leak is indeed a Sony product, expect more leaks as more people get involved in an upcoming launch.
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