NotCliche

Need a slimer slim?

Artwork by: ウサ太郎 @ Pivix.

PS3 Slim is a great improvement over the original PS3, in terms of size and cost. While the PS3 Slim does suffer when it comes to overall performance against the original one, it is often prized as it is a smaller and more compact version than its bigger brother.

However, did you know that the PS3 could’ve been even small than what it is now?

As many would have known, the PS3 Slim is already pretty small for all the features that it has, and majority of the people are pretty satisfied with the compactness offered by the PS3 Slim. At least, it’s more portable than the bulky Xbox 360.

However, in an interview with Nikkei, SCE’s Masayuki Chatani from Sony’s marketing department had revealed that the PS3 Slim was actually thought out to be a smaller than what it’s supposed to be. The factor that added to the overall “bulkiness” for the PS3 Slim? The HDD.

Chatani told Nikkei that Sony had came up with two kinds of methods to counter the bulkiness of the HDD. One is to use a flash memory, which will effectively will down the size, running costs and even noise produced of the PS3.

The other was to leave the HDD out of the PS3 Slim although, and instead, use the PSN as a way of storing game information and saves. All your profiles and the other goody goods that the PS3 offers will all be stored in an online storage of the PSN.

Smaller doesn’t necessarily means better, as evident from this image.

Why did neither options get adopted then? Chatani had mentioned that Sony did consider both options, but had decided to go with the conventional HDD as either option would increase the overall cost of the PS3 Slim. That would be in direct conflict with the promise of a cheaper PS3 that the Slim series prides itself on.

Other than the HDD factor, Sony had mentioned that the power supply unit was also one factor. They could’ve made the PS3 Slim a lot smaller if they removed the power supply unit from the console itself and adopt an external model. However, they had decided to go against that, seeing that it would have imposed restrictions on transport and use, making it harder to use freely.

What amazes me is the fact that Sony considers a 2.5″ HDD as a big factor in scaling down the PS3 Slim. The power supply unit seems to be a more probable solution, but how much space does a HDD that small take anyway?

Plus, the usage of network storage (using the PSN) would bring about a whole bunch of troubles for those users without internet. Of course, there are its benefits… but…

Via: Kotaku.

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