Sony’s Gaming Convention Annoucements

Rather than make a separate post for each, I’ll just round them off quickly in one. Sony is going to be coming out with a whole slew of new Playstation stuff in the next few months. Some of this stuff is currently being exhibited at this week’s GC in Leipzig.

PS3 Wireless Keypad:
One of the biggest issues with chat and internet on game consoles is the fact that it’s hard to input text. Microsoft has had a QWERTY keypad for the Xbox 360 for some time now. Sony is now jumping into the foray with one the PS3. The pad contains a proper though downsized keyboard for entering text and numbers. The pad clips to either a SixAxis or Dualshock 3 and runs wirelessly presumable drawing power from the controller’s internal battery. Check out the link for pictures!
Source: PSU

160gb PS3 Announced:
As I had expected, Sony is releasing a 160gb PS3 to replace the outgoing 80gb Metal Gear/Motorstorm bundles. The new 160gb bundle will include a copy of Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, a PSN voucher for PAIN, and the Dualshock 3. It will retail at $499. The system has been confirmed for Europe and North America but no release date has been set. The big question is whether this model will retain the PS2 backwards compatibility that the old 80gb had.
Source: PSU
Update: Pictures are showing the 160gb model with only two USB ports. This has led to speculation that the new system is identical to the current 40gb SKU except with a larger HDD. This could possibly mean that Sony is dropping PS2 backwards compatibility entirely. Unfortunate news for PS2 fans looking for an all-in-one upscaling system.

PSP 3000 Announced:
Sony has announced the much rumored PSP-3000 will be coming out soon. The system features an improved display with better colours and reduced glare as well as a built in microphone for Skype and GoMessenger. The upgrade wasn’t the leap that gamers had hoped for. Many expected the PSP-3000 to ditch the UMD drive in favour of hard drive or solid state memory with downloadable games. However, if the response time of the LCD display gets sped up a bit, I might consider this one. The system will arrive in North America on October 14th in two bundles. The first in “Mystic Silver” colour will include Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters, National Treasure 2 UMD, Echochrome PSN voucher, and a 1gb memory card. A second in “Piano Black” will include a 4gb memory card and a PSN voucher for Everyday Shooter. Both will retail at $199. A $169.99 Core pack is also planned at a later date. The current Slim bundles will drop to $169.99.
Source: PSU , IGN