SillyDog701

[Antony]

SYDNEY, 6th October 2007 - Sony Computer Entertainment Australia (SCE Aust.) today announced details of its exciting new PLAYSTATION®3 (PS3™) model that will launch throughout Australia on 11th October 2007 at the highly attractive price of RRP AU$699.95 (for Australia) or NZ$799.95 (for New Zealand).

With slightly smaller hard disk storage (40GB), and the power of High Definition gaming and entertainment, AU$699.95 seems to be a much better price

As with the 60GB PS3, the new PS3 features upgradeable firmware allowing new features and functionality to be added to the system as time progresses. A recent firmware update, for example, enabled PS3 to upscale DVD's played on the system to full 1080P High Definition.

Here's a catch, the new 40GB model does not have following features current 60GB PS3 model has:
CF/SD/MD slot, playback Super Audio CD, and PS2 compatibility.
Also, there are only 2 USB ports on 40GB model compared to 4 USB ports on 60GB model.

New PLAYSTATION®3 Model to Take Holiday Season by Storm (press release)

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[Mandrake]

With slightly smaller hard disk storage (40GB), and the power of High Definition gaming and entertainment, AU$699.95 seems to be a much better price

The new pricing is much better than before. The Xbox 360 is $580 here. So you're paying $120 for double the storage, Blu-Ray and WiFi over a 360. Seems like a good deal to me.

Had they done this a few months ago I probably would have spent the extra and gone for the PS3 over the 360.

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[Mandrake]

I just checked the prices, and us Australians are getting seriously ripped off here by Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo.

Here are the prices for these consoles in the US.

Xbox 360: $349 USD,
Wii: $249 USD
PS3 40GB model: $399 USD(If you believe the rumors)

Now for the Australian Pricing.

Xbox 360: $579 AUD
Wii: $399 AUD
PS3 40GB model: $699 AUD

But if you convert what the Americans are paying into AUD:

Xbox 360: $349 USD = $391 AUD
Wii: $249 USD = $278 AUD
PS3: $399 USD = $447 AUD

We are overpaying the following for each console:

Xbox 360: $188 AUD
Wii: $121 AUD
PS3: $252 AUD

Not happy about this.

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[Antony]

PS3 40GB model: $399 USD(If you believe the rumors)

I thought the 40GB model was not available in the States.

But if you convert what the Americans are paying into AUD:

The Aussie dollar closed at .9013 yesterday, a 23-year high. ($1 AUD= $0.9013 USD)

I don't think the retail pricing is based on yesterday's currency exchange. They don't get updated that fast.

In the other hand, Apple did drop the price a few times outside of the States, many believe that was to align with the weakening of US dollar.
PS3 40GB (A$699.95) is about AU$150 more than the 16GB iPod touch (AU$549.00) or about AU$150 cheaper than an Intel Core 2 Duo Mac mini (AU$849.00).

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[Don_HH2K]

It's obvious that they've dropped PS1 and PS2 compatibility from the 40GB model solely to get people to buy the more expensive console. Now that the backwards-compatibility is provided in software instead of having the PS1 and PS2 processors on-board, it hardly costs anything to implement it.

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