First Impressions: PS3 Slim

Sony recently announced the long rumored Playstation 3 Slim at the GamesCom conference in Germany, as well as a (much needed) price drop to $299. The new PS3 Slim has gotten rid of the shiny, fingerprint laden exterior and replaced it with a matte black casing, removed the Spiderman 3 font, changed the power button, and reduced the size in comparison to the PS3 Fat (though it is still a behemoth compared to the PSOne and PS2 Slim). Besides the aesthetic changes, the PS3 Slim comes with a 120GB hard drive, a new cooling system, a 45nm Cell processor (down from that fatty 65nm Cell processor), and uses less power.

The big disappointment for me though was Sony finally putting the nail in the coffin for backwards compatibility. If you recall when the PS3 first arrived on the scene, it actually sported the Emotion Engine as well, allowing full backwards compatibility. I even recall at that time Sony hurling some insults at Microsoft for not having “true” backwards compatibility, and resorting to software emulation. Then Sony decided to release new SKU’s of the PS3 and took out the Emotion Engine, resorting to the same software emulation that they chastised Microsoft for. The next batch of SKU’s from Sony removed backwards compatibility altogether, which required me to scurry and find a PS3 with that feature before they were gone forever.

Many hoped that Sony would release some form of software update though to incorporate backwards compatibility into the systems that had shipped without it, especially since it was such a touted feature when the system first launched. Unfortunately, those hopes were crushed with the recent release of the PS3 Slim, where SCEA’s director of marketing John Koller told Kotaku that “Backwards compatibility is off the table”. He went on to explain:

“Now that we’re at a point where we’re three years into the lifecycle of the PS3, there are so many PS3 disc-based games that are available that we think — and noticed this from our research — that most consumers that are purchasing the PS3 cite PS3 games as a primary [reason]“.

“And it’s not just like 50 or 60 percent. It’s well into the 80 or 90 percentile range who are purchasing it for PS3 [games]. We do know that there are next gen consumers wanting to come over the the PS3. Most of those are consumers who have not utilized their PS2 for a little while and they’re ready to jump into the PlayStation 3.”

I’m sure this is a very cost-effective move for them, but with real estate around the TV becoming scarce, backwards compatibility is still a very strong motivating factor in my household. For those wondering which versions of the PS3 offer backwards compatibility, Sony offers a handy chart:

Hard Drive Capacity	Model Number	USB Ports	Backward Compatible	Release Date	In Production
120GB	CECH-2001A	2	No	September 2009	Yes
160GB	CECHP01	2	No	November 2008	No
80GB	CECHL01	2	No	October 2008	No
80GB	CECHK01	2	No	August 2008	No
80GB	CECHE01	4	Yes	August 2007	No
60GB	CECHA01	4	Yes	November 2006	No
40GB	CECHH01	2	No	March 2008	No
40GB	CECHG01	2	No	November 2007	No
20GB	CECHB01	4	Yes	November 2006	No