As everybody had been more or less anticipating for months now, Sony has released the Playstation 3 Slim, a much smaller, lighter, and more energy-efficient variant of the regular Playstation 3. There's good news for people who held out on the PS3 because it was too expensive, and there's bad news for those of us who liked the idea of running Linux on the PS3.The new Playstation 3 has the same specifications as the previous model, but it's 32% smaller, 36% lighter, and 33% more energy-efficient than the regular Playstation 3. It sports a slightly different look, but mostly it looks like they just shrunk the original model as-is.
Pricing has been slashed to 299 USD, but sadly, they did a one-to-one conversion for us poor Europeans, meaning we'll have to shell out 299 EUR (423USD!), which I find a rip-off of seriously epic proportions.
What's even worse, you'll no longer be able to install Linux on the Playstation 3 Slim. "The new PS3 system will focus on delivering games and other entertainment content, and users will not be able to install other operating systems to the new PS3 system," Sony writes. So if you're into Linux on your PS3, you'd better buy a regular model while they're still available - and you'd be lucky, because those, too have had their prices slashed to 299USD/299EUR. On a happier note, at least we'll no longer have to endure the nonsense of people arguing that the PS3 will be the shining beacon of hope for alternative operating systems.
It will hit stores September 1.
