With the veracity of his information seemingly corroborated by accurately tipping the Sony PS3 Slim back in June now that the skinny console has been made official, tipster Super_Secret’s next prediction – regarding Sony’s portable gaming line – is now under the microscope. In June the anonymous source suggested that rather than phasing out UMD-based PSP models, Sony were instead preparing to replace the current PSP-3000 with a new PSP-4000.
With Sony’s PS3 Slim showing up for sale all over, and word from the company themselves that retailers have been given the green light to begin swapping cash for consoles, it’s only right and fair that the trusty teardown teams begin their dismantling. Both iFixit and Rapid Repair have had their screwdrivers on standby in the run up to the new PS3 Slim’s release, and along with the warning that a teardown “should not be used as disassembly instructions” have set to work stripping the console to its component parts.
Video of teardown process after the cut
So, we’ll admit that that title may be a bit misleading. Why? Because it looks like people aren’t having to look that hard at all to find a few random (or perhaps not too random) pieces of Sony’s new hardware floating around in retail stores. If you’ll remember right, Sony said that the Slim wouldn’t be sold until September 1st, but it’s beginning to look like that release date might not have been as set in stone as originally thought. Well, let’s hope that’s the case, or there’s a lot of stores out there breaking that one cardinal rule.
Sony Computer Entertainment boss Kazuo “Kaz” Hirai has confirmed that the company will continue to lose money on each of the $299 PS3 Slim consoles they sell, together with revealing that Sony’s motion-controller has been pencilled in for a release in spring 2010. Meanwhile he also denied that, with the advent of the UMD-free PSP Go, we are seeing “the death of physical media”, pointing to the large percentage of the 100 countries Sony sells gaming products in that don’t have access to high-speed internet connections for downloads.
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Sony have confirmed that the PS3 Slim will never get PlayStation 2 backward compatibility. According to Sony's director of hardware marketing, John Koller, PS2 compatibility is "not coming back, so let me put that on the table", as well as suggesting that "it's not as big as a purchase intent driver as you may be hearing."
Sony’s latest PS3 may be slimmer, smaller and quieter than its predecessor, but its real surprise may be lurking inside. The company has apparently updated their Cell processor built on 45nm processes rather than the previous 65nm chip; that not only makes for cheaper production, helping Sony bring down the PS3 Slim’s price to $299.99, but it also brings with it increased performance.
If you decided that the Sony PlayStation 3 slim will still take up to much space when horizontal, and that the vertical stand is a must, then this is what your $24 will get you. If we’re honest, we didn’t expect Sony to particularly innovate when it came to this accessory, but it would still have been nice for them to put more than the minority of effort in that the end result required.
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Fable II has grown to be the best-selling Role Playing Game (RPG) on the Xbox 360 (was that really a huge endeavor?), but Peter Molyneux and his Lionhead Studios are not going to rest on their laurels. They're hoping that all the Fable fans out there are ready for more, or at least will be by the holiday season 2010, because the next installment of the critically-acclaimed series is headed to store shelves next year. And Lionhead has a few changes coming.
The Sony PS3 Slim is finally upon us, and we’ve been gathering up all the information you might need in order to choose between the newly-discounted current models or hold off until the new version arrives in North America and Europe on September 1st (Japan on September 3rd). After the cut, the full press release and spec-sheet, together with all the official shots of the new PlayStation 3 and a video interview with Jack Tretton about the new console.
Video after the cut
Well, it’s “been rumored“, it’s been “teased“, and there’s even been “a little bit of a pre-order situation going on over at Kmart,” but up until now, Sony has been all but against the thought of a slim PlayStation 3. It looks things are changing though, and for the better. As that Kmart pre-order screen shows us, the slim PS3 will boast a 120GB hard drive, come bundled with a DualShock 3 controller, as well as an HDMI port that supports 1080p high definition.
SlashGear Japan
