Yesterday’s announcement of the Playstation 3 Slim brings up a few questions; why did it take Sony so long to release the Slim, why so long before the price cut and will I buy it?

The obvious answer for the first question is: price. The actual cost to build the original PS 3 was upwards of $800. When it was first released, it cost to the consumer was $599 for the 60GB version. $499 for the 20GB version. It was the most expensive gaming console out in the market but Sony was still losing money on it, hoping to make it back by selling more games for it. It didn’t happen. The price scared many, who jumped to the cheaper Xbox 360 and then the highly successful Nintendo Wii.

As for the slim, no one knows why Sony took so long to release it. One theory might be, they were hoping after a price reduction and a slew of updates on the original Playstation 3 (went through various minor hardware updates including hard drive capacities), people would eventually buy the system. That didn’t happen either.

The Slim still could have been released as early as next year, when rumors were floating around about a smaller version of the heavy PS 3. Sony decided not to give in and waited till this year but it may not be too late if you’ve been waiting to buy a PS 3

The current price cut for the Playstation 3 consoles makes no sense whatsoever. If you’re a right minded person waiting to buy a PS 3, you will not buy the reduced price Playstation 3s but instead get the Slim, here’s a few reasons why.

Price:

The Playstation 3 Slim offers everything the regular Playstation offers with the exception of installing an OS. You get more hard drive capacity (120 on the Slim compared to 80 on the current PS3) for $299. You’ll get everything in a much sleeker, lighter and smaller package.

Design/Aesthetics:

In the gadget world, thinner and smaller are better and by no means is the Playstation 3 thin or small. It’s bulky and weighs 11 pounds. Imagine having to carry one of these things for a vacation of a trip, your shoulder and back would disagree with you for a while. Now the Slim is 33% smaller, and thinner and weighs 7 pounds. I like the sound of that. The top of the Slim is also not so curved, making it easier to put the controller of games on top of it.

Now after all that, do I still want to buy it? The answer is yes, but I would like to wait until after its release to work out some kinks. We all know when a device first launches, there’s some problems that need to be dealt with. I don’t want to be the guinea pig to try out the new devics, I’ll let someone else take care of that. Until then I’ll be happy playing on my Playstation 3 40GB, which has been with me for a quite a while. Now I have to pick which nephew to give the PS 3 to. That’s going to be a tough one.

Will you be buying the new Playstation 3 Slim on the first week or will you be holding out until all the kinks are worked out?