PlayStation 3 trims down in size and price

Sony Computer Entertainment's chairman and CEO, Kazuo Hirai, announced at Europe's largest gaming confab, gamescom, that its PlayStation 3 will be scaled down in size and priced at $299, $100 less than the current system's pricetag.

According to an article on HollywoodReporter.com, "Sony will roll out the slick, black and slimmer PS3 worldwide in September. The hope is the console, about a third smaller and lighter than the current PS3, will help boost key holiday sales. Sony also used gamescom to announce the European rollout of its PlayStation Network. Starting in November, customers in the U.K., France, Germany and Spain will be able to buy or rent movies from the online service to watch on their PlayStation consoles or PlayStation Portable devices. The service will offer films from the major U.S. studios as well as local players such as Germany's Universum and Constantin Film."

The sleeker PS3 will still include a built-in Blu-ray player and will have a new matte charcoal finish as opposed to the current PS3's shiny black. Sony notes that the cosmetic and cost alterations to the present system were done to make the console more appealing to consumers.

According to an article on Variety.com, "The new PS3, with 120 gigabytes of storage for digital fare like games, movies, TV shows and music, will replace the 80GB version, and the pricepoint is expected to make the PS3 more competitive with its closest rival, Microsoft's Xbox 360 . . . it will distribute comicbooks through a new digital reader for its PSP handheld device."

"This puts us in the position to do extremely well this holiday season," said Jack Tretton, prexy-CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment America. Since its late 2006 launch, Sony has sold nearly 24 million PS3s worldwide with 9 million of those sold in the U.S.