It's Official: Mexico, You Gettin' Worked
The PS3 is finally set to arrive in Latin America. Price, launch date and details inside.
Published: July 30, 2007
Here in the US, we love to complain about stuff -- particularly the price of Sony's little black box o' joy, and while the 60GB PS3 is now $100 cheaper, people are still complaining that it's too high for the mass market (and, well, they're right). Sony revealed at E3 that they're prepping the new 80GB version of the PS3, and it's once again settled into the original launch price of $600, which to some negates the whole price cut -- though the hardware disparity this time around isn't nearly as bad as the smaller hard drive, missing Wi-Fi and card reader slots of the 20GB launch PS3.
But while there's still a little confusion as to what Sony is doing here in the States with multiple versions of the PS3, abroad, it's been fairly clear; the 20GB version isn't being sold anywhere outside of Japan, and in major territories, the 80GB version seems to have taken over as the new, singular launch SKU (shelf-keeping unit, for those who've always been curious about the term). Case in point: our friends down in Latin America.
The PS3 is coming, and technically speaking it's packing the most value of any of the PS3 models -- unless you count hardware backwards compatibility, but the software version continues to get better with each firmware update (see, originally Sony packed PS2 guts inside the PS3 to ensure full backwards compatibility with old PS2/PS one games, but in an effort to drive down the cost of making them, starting with the European launch, the guts were taken out and the PS3 moved to software support. Eventually that will become the primary means of playing older titles).
But back to Mexico for a minute. If you'd like that shiny new 80GB version, you can pick it up for 9,999 Mexican Pesos -- or a little under 915 US greenbacks. $500 doesn't sound quite as bad, does it? Folks living in PAL territories had to pay fairly steep prices themselves; Euro launch price was about $825, but in places like Norway, Denmark and Iceland, the price crept above $1000. In stark contrast, the PS3 price in Japan was slashed to under $500 to compete with Nintendo's mounting wave of mass conversion. In short, the Mexican price isn't exactly surprising, but it is pricey nonetheless.
Oh, but you also get a free copy of Formula One Championship Edition, and... um... well, that's about it. The new model hits on August 11th (yes, it was announced officially just a week and a half before the street date by way of the official PlayStation Mexico blog, and no, you're not seeing things; they really do use Microsoft's Live Spaces to blog about official PlayStation business). Those dying to blow their money can start pre-ordering on the SonyStyle Mexico web site starting this Wednesday.
But while there's still a little confusion as to what Sony is doing here in the States with multiple versions of the PS3, abroad, it's been fairly clear; the 20GB version isn't being sold anywhere outside of Japan, and in major territories, the 80GB version seems to have taken over as the new, singular launch SKU (shelf-keeping unit, for those who've always been curious about the term). Case in point: our friends down in Latin America.
The PS3 is coming, and technically speaking it's packing the most value of any of the PS3 models -- unless you count hardware backwards compatibility, but the software version continues to get better with each firmware update (see, originally Sony packed PS2 guts inside the PS3 to ensure full backwards compatibility with old PS2/PS one games, but in an effort to drive down the cost of making them, starting with the European launch, the guts were taken out and the PS3 moved to software support. Eventually that will become the primary means of playing older titles).
But back to Mexico for a minute. If you'd like that shiny new 80GB version, you can pick it up for 9,999 Mexican Pesos -- or a little under 915 US greenbacks. $500 doesn't sound quite as bad, does it? Folks living in PAL territories had to pay fairly steep prices themselves; Euro launch price was about $825, but in places like Norway, Denmark and Iceland, the price crept above $1000. In stark contrast, the PS3 price in Japan was slashed to under $500 to compete with Nintendo's mounting wave of mass conversion. In short, the Mexican price isn't exactly surprising, but it is pricey nonetheless.
Oh, but you also get a free copy of Formula One Championship Edition, and... um... well, that's about it. The new model hits on August 11th (yes, it was announced officially just a week and a half before the street date by way of the official PlayStation Mexico blog, and no, you're not seeing things; they really do use Microsoft's Live Spaces to blog about official PlayStation business). Those dying to blow their money can start pre-ordering on the SonyStyle Mexico web site starting this Wednesday.
