PS3 40GB Model Coming To North America, Lacks PS2 BC Support

We knew for weeks that a 40GB Playstation 3 was going to happen in Australia, but thanks to a blog post by SCEA CEO Jack Tretton, we now also know that it will be making its way over to our shores. Sadly, like the version we knew about before, this one will suffer the same fate of not being able to play PS2 games, thanks to support being removed.

That is a stupid move. Making things even worse, the removal of backwards compatibility was not even done to save money. Rather, it was done deliberately to encourage buyers of the “budget” version to purchase PS3 games. What?! At least you can pick up an actual PS2 for under $100, but at that point, you might as well splurge on a 60GB or 80GB PS3 and save all of that extra hassle.

With all the speculation and buzz out there regarding the 40GB PS3 announcements in Japan and Europe, I am very excited to confirm that the new $399 PS3 model will be coming to North America on November 2nd, making that particular configuration available worldwide. In North America, the 40GB PS3 comes bundled with the block-buster movie Spider-Man 3 on Blu-ray. Also, effective today, we’ve lowered the purchase price of our 80GB model by $100 to $499.

Source: Playstation Blog