Sony should’ve cut the price of the PS3 a long time ago.
The new official PS3 (many call ‘em PS3 Slim) has now sold for one million units worldwide.

Though this number is from Sony Computer Entertainment Inc., their claim is supported by many news sources reporting of possible shortages and a 1000% increase on sales since the PS3 Slim launch.

PS3 Slim has been available since September 1st, 2009 in North America and Europe. In Asia it was available since September 3rd, 2009.

We knew that the price cut for PS3 would be good, but not THIS good.

No wonder they looked so happy at PAX 2009.
With Sony’s new PS3 Slim + price cut, they’ve seen a 1,000% increase in sales so far.

According to gameindustry.biz, they have found that the uplift from week 36 on week 35 is plus 999%. Sony had a similar experience in sales increase with the PS2 Slim (week 44 for PS2) announcement, though it stopped at 310%.

Some people thought it was too late for Sony to be back in the race, but things look a bit different now.

The bossman of SCE (Sony Computer Entertainment), Kazou “Kaz” Hirai talks about the new PS3 logo and PS3 hardware profit.

In the recent interview with Times, Kaz Hirai enlightened us with many new information, sharing his thoughts and philosophy for the new direction that PS3 is embarking on . If you read his interview closely, Times UK threw many curve balls. But with a huge response from the public (mostly gamers), whatever he says now is music to PS3 fans and gamers out there.

When Times asked him about the slow PS3 market-share growth, he said it is not as fast as the PS2 growth, but closer to the original PS1 progress. He also said that Sony always looks 10 years ahead of their product, indicating that they are not after quick results.

When he was asked about the “losing-money-on-each-console-sold” question, he clarified that on hardware alone it’s true that Sony is losing money, but with the help of software and peripherals, he commented that Sony is making profit since the last fiscal year. In the last financial report from Sony, they have told investors that it now costs 70% less to manufacture PS3, totaling to about $250 a pop. Kaz’s claim about Sony making money seems to fit.

And when they asked Kaz about the new PS3 logo, he explained that he wanted to send a message internally; that he wants to reset the thinking, going back to the roots of the PlayStation brand.

The old PS3 logo

into this! The new PS3 logo.

Do you think Sony’s going to win over the gamer’s hearts again?
We can’t say for sure but no doubt Sony is heading in the right direction.

Many gamers on the net agree that the new PS3 Slim model with a price cut is a home run.

Let’s face it; PS3 Slim news is everywhere and looks like every gaming website is squeezing in information that’s not even news anymore. And there were debates about the PS3 Slim getting any actual upgrades compared to its fat, older brothers.

While many speculations were floating around the web, Kombo came up with an interesting article about how PS3 Slim is getting performance upgrades. They borrowed a statement from IBM, the Cell processor manufacturer for PS3, admitting that the (Cell for PS3 Slim) is “manufactured using an advanced 45-nanometer manufacturing process,” bringing “many performance improvements while drawing less power than earlier chips.”

So what kind of performance improvements?
Not much news about that, except for an interesting find from Engadget about PS3 Slim.

They’ve found that the PS3 Slim can “bitstream” Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio.
Audiophiles (and 90% of wannabes who think they are audiophiles) rejoice.

To put it simply, the old fat PS3 had to internally decode the Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD MA formats. This means an additional processing step before the sound goes to the receiver, thus risking a lower sound quality. Now with PS3 Slim, it can directly bitstream the audio information without the extra processing step that can translate to lower sound quality. In the audiophile world, more processing steps usually means degrading the original sound quality.

So there you have it. PS3 Slim is not just about being lighter, smaller and more efficient; it’s also about being smarter about performance management.

Finally!
PS3 gets a price cut. And a diet.

Many of us thought that Sony wanted to be left alone with their own little fan-based gamers.
But looks like they want to get back into the game. A price cut that many gamers wanted so much, is finally happening.

The new price for PS3 Slim is $299.
Sony also claims that the new PS3 Slim will be about 36% lighter, 32% smaller and consumes about 34% less power.

We really think that this can be a turning point for Sony to catch up to Xbox360.