40GB $399 PS3 Revealed With Spiderman 3 Bundle

[GMichael]

It looks like MS also has a similar announcement to undercut the PS3 move. The XBOX 360 "Arcade" is slated to drop in Oct, and is priced at $279. Does not include a hard drive, but before the old flame guns get going, remember neither does the Wii, and its selling quite nicely.

Even without the HD, the "Arcade" can still double as a media center, access onlice content, and play all current 360 titles. I say current, as there are some rumors out there that in the future some titles will require the use of the HD.

It is aimed more at the casual gamer, and its not a bad deal. HD gaming for only $30 more than the current best selling SD console.

Not sure why an HD is needed. To store the games on it to save load times?

[emorphien]

Saved game data is stored on the hard drive, however IIRC much of that is backed up to your Xbox Live account so you don't need a hard drive. I think the Arcade version (if that's what they're calling it) will ship with one of the memory cards however, which can certainly store a lot of game data as well.

The HD is also good for downloading game updates as well as addons. I've downloaded extra cars for Forza 2 through Xbox Live, totaling maybe 50 or 60mb.

[Groundbeef]

Also, if you use it as a media center, you can also store music, video, and other media on the unit itself. Without the HD you would need to stream data from your PC to play it.

I've d/l about 20 movies now, and cant do that without the HD.

[emorphien]

I've yet to get my Xbox to network properly with my desktop (running Vista Ultimate 64). They see each other but something is interrupting their successful communication. It may be a firewall issue, I haven't worked on it much.

[GMichael]

From this link: http://www.efluxmedia.com/news_Cheap...Buy_09291.html


Speculations about a new model of PlayStation 3 have increased with the discovery of some secret documents from Best Buy, which indicate the upcoming arrival in the US of a 40GB, USB-less console, packed with Spiderman 3 on Blu Ray.

Gadget-oriented blog Engadget has come up with a series of secret documents from Best Buy that seem to demonstrate the future inception of a 40GB PlayStation 3 here in the US, starting late October/early November. Priced at $399.99, the new model is allegedly arriving without USB ports and has no backwards compatibility with PlayStation 2 games (not even software backwards compatibility).

The news is to be taken with a grain of salt until Sony officially confirms this- and rumor has it that they’ll be doing it on October 12, during a special press conference. Until then, there are some strong arguments in favor of this “dumbed-down” PS3:

1. The FCC filling codenamed CECHG01, which is closely related to CECHA01 and CECH01. What that means is that CECHA01 and CECH01 are the names by which Sony designates the previous two models of PS3, so CECHG01 would indicate the upcoming one.


2. Short history of Sony’s capacity of keeping secrets: even two weeks before this year’s E3 people knew about an envisioned price cut for the console. The same applies for Xbox 360’s $50 price cut operated in August, which was almost certitude a week before the official announcement from Microsoft. The recently unveiled Zune and Apple’s new line of iPods also fit into this category of products whose secrets leak faster than the speed of light.


3. And last, but not least, Sony’s need to position itself better in the mainstream console market, where it doesn’t currently have a competitor for Xbox 360 Premium or the Nintendo Wii