Yesterday, in Germany, Sony announced the Playstation 3 Slim.  It’s a PS3, retailing for $299, that’s approximately a third lighter and smaller.  For the first time since the console was released, it feels affordable and justifiable as an entertainment purchase.

In this age of spoilers and rumors, the PS3 Slim had been rumored for quite a while and the announcement yesterday felt more like a confirmation and the attachment of a release date than an actual surprise.

Still, it gave me pause.  Up until the announcement yesterday, I had considered and rejected the idea of purchasing a PS3 in the near future.  My reasons are, to me, pretty clear cut.

  • The PS3 is expensive.  This is a bit less true now; $300 is certainly more palatable than $400, but that doesn’t include game purchases to begin a new library.  Also, I wouldn’t be able to sell my PS2 to offset those costs while retaining my PS2 game library, as the PS3 doesn’t have backwards compatibility.
  • The PS3 doesn’t have too many games that are exclusive to it that I particularly want to play.  Most next-gen games come out for the 360 as well.  Aside from LittleBigPlanet, there’s nothing I’ve actually felt like I’ve missed out on by not owning a PS3.
  • More of my friends have a 360.  This is also slowly becoming less true, as more of my friends that only had a 360 before are now picking up PS3s.  But when I had to make my initial choice between the two, a lot more of my friends had 360s, meaning that if I wanted to play online with people, it made little sense that pay more for a PS3 and get a smaller pool of friends that I could play with.
  • I don’t really want a Blu-Ray player…yet.  The built-in Blu-Ray player is a huge point in the PS3 column, but it’s not something that I really want.  My eyes are not yet that critical of the quality in our DVD collection and a new Blu-Ray player would drive me toward buying new Blu-Ray discs.  That’s not something I feel like doing just yet.

Logically, there’s very little reason for me to buy a PS3 right now.  However, I will admit that when I heard the announcement of a slimmer, sleeker PS3 combined with a $100 price cut, I did feel a little…consumer-y.  The thought, maybe I’ll actually get one of these now crossed my mind.

Maybe I’ll wait and see if there are any killer deals on Black Friday.

Oh – and the Schwan man delivered fudgesicles and they’re delicious.