The PlayStation 3 Slim is Great, But…

Where Sony’s PlayStation 3 is concerned… there’s one aspect that’s a little interesting. To understand it better, take a look at Microsoft’s Xbox 360. Since that console’s launch, there have been multiple revisions made, and to my knowledge, all of them are for the better – despite price drops over the years. The PlayStation 3 didn’t experience the same transformation, sadly, and as a result, the original 60GB model is still a hot commodity.

So what on earth would cause someone to seek out that older model rather than purchase a newer, and probably more affordable system? Simple: Backwards Compatibility. One of the absolute best features of the PS3 (in my opinion) is the ability to play both PlayStation One and 2 games, partly in thanks to the fact that I own near 100 games from each of those consoles.

If you had a massive entertainment center, then sure, adding a PlayStation 2 is not really a problem. But if your limited in space, putting another console on the stand might not be an option. Plus… having everything confined to one console is simply more convenient. I won’t even touch on the fact that the PS3 has the ability to upscale… and it does a pretty good job of it.

There’s also another feature missing on the most-recent Slim release… the ability to install Linux. Of course, that reason will effect a lot less than the backwards compatibility, but it’s still a notable issue. Either way, I consider the backwards compatibility to be rather important, and it’s for that reason that I really, really hope that my launch PS3 doesn’t die anytime soon.

At least on eBay you can see what they are actually selling for.” So what are they selling for? “It looks like the 60GB are going for about $250 to $270. Closer to retail, but nothing dramatic yet.” You can look at that number two ways: the $600 systems have dropped in value dramatically, or that people are willing to pay nearly the going retail price for a three year-old system.