With the last two generations of gaming consoles, it’s become a common practice to release periodice updates to the hardware. Sony did this with the Playstation 2 and their incremental updates to the Phat line and then the announcement of the PS2 Slim. Microsoft has done this as well with their processor upgrades for the Xbox 360, which was one way of trying to solve the Red Ring of Death problem that plagued the first iterations of the console. The 360 then changed the chassis altogether with its “slim” lineup.
The Playstation 3 has also seen its share of new incremental improvements. It has changed some of the configurations inside the PS3, for example, from using a single lens pickup to read DVDs and Blurays to the adoption of a dual lens configuration, with a dedicated lens for the DVD and Bluray. Of course, the PS3 Slim is the most notable change in the current PS3 evolution. It carried a smaller, much more efficient processor and consumed less power. You’d think that with the PS3 now at the latter half of its lifecycle that it won’t be getting improvements anymore. But Sony still wants to improve on it.
It has been announced that new shipments of the PS3 Slim will carry new improvements once again. This is one of their incremental improvements but it’s still a welcome one. First, the new models will carry less weight – 2.6kg from the 3kg of the older PS3 Slims. It will also consume less power with just 200 watts. The last models consumed 230 watts. The new models will also ship with a larger 320GB hard drive. Not content with that, Sony has also decided to spruce up the chassis of the PS3 Slim as well. The lip where the power and eject buttons are located are now the same charcoal black color as the chassis itself.
Expect the new models (with the code CECH-3000B) to be released by September in Japan. No announcements yet on when it will be released in other countries.