A while back Sony was struck with a tough decision on whether or not to include HDMI in the low end version of the PS3. After all, the last thing you want to do is be accused of forcing people to pay for a feature they may or may not want… This caused a huge uproar in the gaming community. What good is HD gaming and Blu-Ray without HDMI?
Sony must have heard the uproar as they announced in the Keynote today that all levels of the PS3 would be getting the digital HDMI ports. I think this is a smart move on Sony’s part and I am glad to see that they listened to the consumers on this issue.
Another interesting point that Ken talked about at the Keynote was that they dropped the price of the 20GB (think Core system) version of the system for the Japanese region only. The console was originally priced at 62,790 yen and was lowered to 49,980 yen. [url=http://www.xe.com/ucc/convert.cgi?Amount=49980&From=jpy&To=usd]XE Currenty Converter[/url] shows that as a $110 price drop. Of course this has sent the industry analysts into a frenzy about what a pre-release drop will mean to losses and sales and all that jazz.
The consensus coming out of TGS so far is that the presentation was a focused technological discussion and didn’t introduce any new products. This was a strategic move in a time when Sony needs to ramp up the momentum to launch. We will see how that plays out for them.
