Dave Horvath
25 Jan 2008 11:43
According to an internal memo at retail giant Best Buy, the store will no longer stock and distribute the 80GB Sony PS3, thereby moving the console closer to a single SKU retail option. According to the memo, the store will no longer carry the product after January 28th of this year. The unverified memo reads, "The 80GB version of the PS3 is going closeout and won't be replaced at this time. Only the 40GB version of PS3 will be sold in Best Buy stores at this time."
This move as a whole would completely dismiss backwards compatibility for future PS3 owners from ever being achieved. As known in the past, the 40GB model saved money by going with a different motherboard which did not include the architecture needed for backwards compatibility for PS2 games. Of course, PS1 games are still playable via the digital download service they offer. If this memo serves as a direction that Sony wishes to take with future sales, it would mean that Sony has given up on supplying backwards compatibility to its customers.
To further substantiate this, North America is the only region that still a multi-system lineup. Japan and the UK have already dropped the higher capacity models in favor of the cheaper 40GB model. Earlier last year, Sony had dropped the 20GB and the 60GB model from their lineup, leaving only the 40GB and 80GB respectively.