Don't get me wrong, I'm a great fan of the PS3 but not for the gaming which, when compared to the Xbox 360 is in a totally different league in my opinion. But when it comes to the actual hardware, well, the PS3 wins every time. Not only is it of a far higher quality than the Xbox 360, and if you don't believe me then ask those people who when surveyed revealed the Xbox 360 has a failure rate of 50 percent compared to just 10 percent for the PS3, but it also has Blu-ray. Truth be told, when I first bought the PS3, on the day of release, the Blu-ray player was the deal clincher. You just could not buy a player for anywhere near the asking price, and getting a games console thrown in for free seemed a decent offer. Of course, there was always a slight niggle that I had got it wrong and the HD-DVD would win out and I'd have to invest in an Xbox 360 and add-on player for my DVD's.
Little did I know I would, indeed, end up investing in a 360 but not for the now deceased HD-DVD format support but simply because the games I wanted to play were appearing on the Microsoft platform rather than Sony's.
Of course, many others would appear to have had similar feelings and the PS3 has been struggling to match the Xbox 360, and the Wii, in terms of sales and market share. Surprisingly, given what a great deal getting that Blu-ray player was a few years back, the price has been the deal breaker for Sony.
The PS3 has proved to be simply too expensive when compared to the other consoles in the marketplace.
At long last Sony Computer Entertainment appears to have not only realised this, but decided to do something about. No, not reduce the price of the PS3 but rather introduce a new and cheaper version of the console in the shape of the PS3 slim.
Just as the PlayStation 2 before it saw the introduction of a slim version to boost sales, so the PlayStation 3 has perhaps inevitably followed suit. According to SCE president and CEO Kazuo Hirai, the PS3 slim is some 36 percent lighter and 32 percent smaller than the original PS3 but retains the Blu-ray player along with a 120GB hard drive.
So just how much has the price slimmed down? The answer is by a none too shabby US $100. On sale, we are told, from September 1st, the PS3 slim will cost $299 in the US and £249.99 in the UK.