I much prefer the look of the slim. I'm tired of the glossy black finish on pretty much anything. It's just a magnet for fingerprints and tiny scratches. Granted, that's less of a problem with a console, but still a bit of one. Dust shows way worse on gloss than on matte and when trying to clean it off you're gonna almost always leave smudges.

I've got enough huge boxes hooked into my entertainment center. I don't mind saving a little space anywhere I can get it. The smaller size and weight are absolutely fine by me. The touch buttons are neither here nor there for me. Who cares if they are solid buttons or not. Anything they can do to bring the launch price down even further is fine by me.

What actual benefits are there of owning this cheapened version of a mighty console?
Exactly what is cheapened other than the price? It does exactly what the old one is. I guess people with old ones can brag about how giant their c**ks are because they bought it when it ws $4-600 bucks or something and it looks like something out of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

seriously, what are Sony thinking?
They were thinking that finally production costs had dropped on things like the blu-ray bits. They were thinking they needed something new and sexy to make a bigger splash. They were thinking more people would buy their console if the dropped the price AND made it look different. Some people would finally get around to getting one and the gadget whores might also get an extra one for the looks or just to have an extra.

Sony was thinking of turning a profit and honestly it's one of the smartest things they done lately after a litany of prior mistakes (and it seems to be followed by plenty more... hi2u PSPGo).


So you get a 120gb HDD - big deal! Why don't you just buy an older one and slam a 250gb (and upwards) Laptop SATA drive in it?
You're saying that coming with a decent size HDD pre-installed is a bad feature? You been trying the Xbox 360 Kool-aid? And if you want a bigger one, there's nothing to keep you from upgrading to a bigger one. I honestly don't see where your logic is coming from that starting with a 120 GB HDD (at a price point of $300) is a bad thing anyway.


I hate to say it, but you just sound butthurt that you shelled out a lot of money and now the price is far lower. If you had a launch PS3 (not sure... maybe your 60 GB one) then just be glad it's BC. I'd be willing to pay more if it was BC.