Following the successful launch of a slimmer PlayStation 3 model back in September, Sony has announced a beefier 250GB variant of the console is due to hit U.S. stores next month priced at $350. Besides upping storage capacity, the new system will be otherwise identical to the existing 120GB version which sells for $50 less.

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Sony is only doing this to compete with the ever growing HDD capacity of the X360, frankly 120GB is more than enough if your only using the console for gaming. Only if someone was to start buying movies on the PSN would the extra capacity come into play. My 60GB is full of nothing but games to the point where I actually do need more space, more than 120GB probably not.

na. you need the big HDD space nowerdays. my PS3 has aroudn 10gigs of music, 10 gigs of movies/tv shows. 5 gigs of demos. 10 gigs worth of games and contenet. I coudl easily fill the 80 gigs on my PS3, As for my Xbox. well the 20 gig Harddrive is FULL! I am gonna buy a 250 gig if I have the money.

I bought a 250GB PS3 in the UK 2 weeks ago.

I am wondering if you could put a higher spec hard drive in it? say a 7,200 rpm western digital black caviar hard drive? wouldn't that speed up loading times as well since games require installation? sorry, I don't own a ps3, i have a 360 but i've been wanting a ps3 for a year now and i'm wondering if i could just buy the smaller hard driver version and buy a really good hard drive, now i think about it, could it support SSD drives???

Putting any faster drive will increase load times that are based on HDD installs, all downloadable games increase dramatically. It all depends on the read speed of the drive you want, SSDs would be the best way to go if thats what your looking for, if not a fast 7200 RPM drive should have a slight improvement.

I still have a 40GB and no where close to filling that up....no need for a large hard drive when you stream everything.

Thanks Adhmuz so buying your own faster hard drive would actually make a difference. Anyone who is reading this, I'm wondering if any of you have had trouble putting in your own drive or if you have seen or noticed a good speed increase?

Installing your own HDD is incredibly simple, if you can loosen the damn screws. I stripped my screws, couldn't even get one of them loose and I was applying a lot of down force while twisting. If you can do that though it should only take you five minutes. I ended up using mine as an external HDD and just copied movies on it from my computer and then watched them on my TV using the PS3. Of course, you could also stream movies using TVersity or something similar, but for me it was often choppy.

I read a comparison between SSD and 7200 RPM HDD and the results weren't significant, so it's not worth the extra money. That was about a year ago, though, so you might want to look around the net to see if things have changed.

$50 for the extra space is worth it to me. Sure, you could wait until you fill up the 120 GB and by that time you'll be able to buy a 1 TB laptop HDD to put in your PS3. While switching out the HDD is simple, you'd also want to back everything up, which requires a third HDD.

It's only $50, which is at least competitive. Still, I want it bundled with Uncharted 2 before I buy it.

Its about the same as doing the upgrade yourself, so at least they aren't bending you over for the extra space.

Interesting although I'd probably get the 120 gb model and buy a drive for it. Uncharted 2 looks really good in the tv ads currently.

I'd rather replace the HDD myself but to each his own.