172w ago - Below is a video and some pictures of a Sony PS3 Slim system LED modification in action from flasheur via YouTube.

I was putzing around, saw this and it looked pretty cool! To quote from the source linked above:

"I present the PS3 slim of jefff...

Mod making:

• 4 Red led on Inter
• 4 Led to a blue cross
• 4 Green led on Inter
• 4 Led to a pink cross
• 2 Led to a multi Inter
• 4 Blue LED on the drive presence LED
• 1 White LED has left the power button

So there you have a multiple LED configuration!"

179w ago - Sony Computer Entertainment Inc's Masayuki Chatani revealed to Nikkei's TechOn in a recent interview that the PS3 could have been even smaller if they left the power supply on the outside.

However, if they had done this there would have been issues with transport and easy use. The obvious question: Would you prefer the PlayStation 3 Slim to be even smaller with an external PSU, or is it fine with an internal one?

To quote: "It was pretty tough to squeeze a power-hungry piece of equipment like the PS3, drawing up to 250W, into a case this small, complete with power supply.

I think it's a very advanced design, and am really proud of the engineers who achieved it.

True, the case could have been made even smaller if we'd left the power supply on the outside, but that would have imposed restrictions on transport and use, making it harder to use freely."

179w ago - This is interesting.. According to iSuppli.com Sony now losing just $36 on every PS3 Slim sold.

To quote: "The PlayStation 3 was the biggest risk yet for Sony with an estimated manufacturing cost between $690 and $805 when it first hit the market. The retail price was just $599 showing how much each sale hurt.

The saving grace, however, is the fact that manufacturing costs come down and most of the profit is generated from game sales rather than the hardware itself. In January Sony was thought to have reduced its manufacturing costs by 35% to just $448, but still $48 above the then $399 retail price.

Then the PS3 Slim was created which involved a development cost and new components. That pushed the loss back up to around $100, but was combined with a surge in sales increasing the profits garnered from game sales.

Now with Christmas fast approaching iSuppli has done a new report showing that Sony has reduced costs to $336 meaning each sale now only loses the company $36. That paves the way for profit at some point next year when certain PS3 Slim components fall in price."

179w ago - Here is a little piece of news we skipped over when our PS3 Reference Tool arrived.

One of our resident PS3 DEV's CouRieR extracted the flash of a PS3 Slim (CECH-2000) European console with Firmware 2.75 a few months back by removing the chip, and dumping it with an external reader along the lines of the BeeProg.

The chip, a Samsung K8Q2815UQB, is a 128 Megabit flash chip. The dump, which weighs in at 16.0 MB (16,777,728 bytes), is quite similiar to that of a later model PS3 with the smaller flash.

Earlier generation Fat PS3's, those that sported dual 1 Gigabit flashes, had two copies of the PS3 firmware along with a full AES filesystem (for /dev_flash) on the flash.

The PS3 Slims, like later generation Fat's, have the AES filesystem (/dev_flash) on the Hard Disk Drive, and mounted virtually (like a loopback) with only one copy of the firmware.

Both the Fat and Slim PS3 systems feature everything that one would expect: a bootloader, corresponding core operating system LV1/LV2 SELF's, along...

181w ago - Sony's PlayStation 3 Slim entertainment system seems to be picking up the pace this holiday season, as VentureBeat.com (linked above) reports that 440,000 PS3 consoles were sold during Thanksgiving Week this year.

It appears Sony's Blu-ray Movie, PS3 Slim Bundle and HD Entertainment promotional campaigns are paying off indeed.

To quote from SCEA's Sr. Director of Corporate Communications and Social Media Patrick Seybold:

"The 2009 holiday season got off to an amazing start for PlayStation, with all key retailers showing a significant increase for PS3, PSP and key holiday titles over Black Friday and the holiday weekend.

PlayStation 3 demand was at an all time high with the system selling more than 440,000 units for the week ending 11/29/09."