It’s official: Britain really does get screwed over on console prices. Today the new various coloured 40Gb PlayStation 3 models have been released in Hong Kong, costing less than a British Wii. The 40Gb model costs just HK$ 2,680, or £170 in real money. That’s £70 (or HK$ 1,100) less than the older 60Gb models, though the newer models do have crippled PlayStation 2 backwards compatibility. Annoyingly, it means the PlayStation 3 now literally costs almost twice as much in the UK as it does in the Asian market. And Sony wonder why they’re not selling enough systems…
In other “Sony hate the West” news, today sees the release of Gran Turismo 5 Prologue in Hong Kong (with Japanese and downloadable PlayStation Store versions to follow later this week). Or that might just be “Sony hates everyone” news, because they’re charging full price for the game, which is essentially an early demo of Gran Turismo 5. It does look absolutely stunning though. If you want, you can sign up for an account on the Hong Kong PlayStation Store and buy it online that way.
On the same topic, it’s worth having a quick rant about the DualShock 3 pad. It was released in Asia last month, and is really a nice improvement over the old Sixaxis pad (with added rumble and weightiness). It won’t be released in Europe and the US till Spring 2008 – the bastards! Well, I say bastards, but I’m in Asia so it doesn’t really bother me. Still, Sony, those bastards!