EB’s PS3 deal… is it good?

Fancy one of those new PS3’s? EB Games have got a deal. We’ll tell you the pros and cons.

The new 80 gigabyte PlayStation 3 will be out later this week. What’s changed? Well, not much… there’s an 80gb drive and… well, that’s it. But as usual, the Australian retailers have all piped up to tell you that you’ll be able to get the new console version as part of great deals at their stores.

If you walk past any EB Games in Australia at the moment, you’ll find a banner up advertising two PlayStation 3 trade-in deals one of which is this:

So let me get the gist of this…
I can get the brand new 80gb PlayStation 3 when I trade in a 60GB console plus four games and pay $199.

I’m not too sure if I’d go for this deal but let’s see if you should.

There’s a 20 gigabyte difference between the first generation PS3 and a 40 gigabyte difference between the most recently found second generation PlayStation 3. Now first off, twenty gigabytes – if you can even find a hard drive that size anymore – doesn’t cost two hundred bucks. It doesn’t cost two hundred and fifty, either.

Just going off of some local Sydney pricing… carry the one… divide… it would cost around seven dollars. As it stands, the smallest drive I can find is a 160GB and that’s around 60-70 bucks. Let’s just go with around 80 bucks for a 160GB to round out a number here.

Now eighty dollars is not two hundred plus four games, each of which will probably set you back a hundred more dollars.

Hmm… that’s not sounding like it’s too good of a deal, to be honest. Let’s see what else there is…

If you’re lucky enough to have a 60GB PlayStation 3, you should be proud that you have a PlayStation 3 that is essentially capable of backwards compatibility, has more USB ports, and comes with the card reader. Your 60GB PlayStation 3 is therefore better than the newer 80GB version which comes with nothing new and actually has less features.

All of this ignores the interesting note that Sony don’t have a problem with you upgrading the PlayStation 3. The bottom of the console can be pulled off pretty easily and the hard drive replaced with the right sort of screw drivers (computer-intended Phillips head screwdrivers, preferrably made out of something like plastic or ceramic so as not to ruin the screws themselves). Replaying the hard drive in your current PlayStation 3 doesn’t void your warranty either.

Interestingly, EB’s prices are of concern too because not only does the whole trade-in deal seem a little bit of a dodge for people trading in, customers looking to get a pre-owned console seem to feel the hands of EB reaching for their wallet big time.

According to current EB PlayStation 3 prices, a preowned 40GB PS3 will set you back $649, a paltry 50 bucks less than what a new 40GB currently costs which is the exact same price as what the 80GB will be when it comes out later this week.

But imagine if you wanted the older, first-generation system. Imagine trading in your system plus four games and forking over two-hundred bucks only to find that EB are charging someone else five cents short of $900 just to get that system.

So should you get this deal? Should you trade in your PlayStation 3 and four games plus a wad of cash for a new model with a slightly bigger disk drive and nothing else new?

Only you can answer that, but since I can’t find any obvious advantages to this deal other than making your wallet a little lighter, maybe it’s an easy decision.

Written by Leigh D. Stark

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