It was in September last year when we first heard of Sony rolling out a PS3 model that carried a far more affordable price tag, as the internals have been changed, sporting 12GB of flash memory instead of a massive hard drive. That particular model was marketed exclusively in Europe and Hong Kong only, and there were no indications of it arriving in the US. Of course, that omission was no big deal, really, since 12GB of storage space is not going to do much for folks who happen to have spent the past few years building a relatively large games library.
It seems that Sony thinks the US is now ready for the Sony PS3 12GB model, despite what Sony Computer Entertainment America VP of marketing, handhelds and home consoles, John Koller, shared last time, “The smaller Flash drive isn’t coming to North America, and a lot of that reason is the digital consumer. We really want to make sure, out of the box, that there is an option for them to be able to download that content. That is really critical for us, very very important.” What you see above is a leaked image of an alleged 12GB PlayStation 3 found in a Kmart stockroom Stateside, with a “do not sell until” date that points to August 18th.