Sony Drops Price of PlayStation 3; Unveils WiFi-less PSP for EU

At the conclusion of its Gamescom keynote, Sony surprised everyone by announcing worldwide price drops on all models of the PlayStation 3. The base model, including a 160GB hard drive, will retail for $249.99 in the US and Canada, €249.99 in Europe and ¥24,980 in Japan. Other models that either include a bundled game or beefier storage have also had their prices dropped $50.

These price drops aren’t something that will happen, but rather something that has happened, so if you have been contemplating picking up a PS3, then your local store should have this updated price reflected.

After these price drops were announced, Sony also unveiled an updated PlayStation Portable console that’s currently only set to launch in the EU. It’s no different in specs compared to the other current model PSP, but forgoes the WiFi capabilities. That means that there will be no Internet browsing or PlayStation Store perusing. Rather, to do the latter, Sony’s own Media Go software will be required (we gave a tour of the software last summer).

That requirement won’t be an issue for Windows users, but it will be poor for everyone else. I have used Media Go a fair bit in a virtual machine though, and that works out well, but, virtualization isn’t exactly a great solution for things as simple as this. Regardless, having a non-WiFi option is fantastic, and should have been one to exist long ago.