172w ago - In order to accomodate the Torne digital TV recorder add-on announced for Japan, Sony's PS3 will be getting an officially licensed 500GB external hard drive next month.

PC hardware maker Buffalo announced today news of two external hard drives that have been granted official recognition from Sony, which apparently is the first time Sony has granted licensing to hard drive peripherals.

To quote: "Both drives have 500GB capacity and connect to the PS3 via an included USB 2.0 cable. The ¥14,800 Piano Black HD-AV500U2/SC sits horizontally and has a meter on its front showing remaining space.

The ¥11,800 Black HD-CL500U2/SC stands vertically but lacks the meter. They're both pre-formatted in a FAT32 format, allowing for immediate connection to the PS3.

In addition to being used as an external recording device for Torne, the drives can also be used for backup and restore of the PS3's internal hard drive, and for saving and playback of videos, pictures and music."

263w ago - SCEE boss David Reeves has hinted that Sony may at some point consider releasing Official external PS3 HDD's.

"We launched with 60GB and to reduce the price we went to 40GB. We're not sure we want to stay with that configuration of hard drive, and I think what you're going to see in the future is maybe consumers can choose.

The PlayStation will stay the same, but consumers can choose whichever size of hard drive they want. They can now, or course, because it's not a proprietary hard drive." said Reeves.

To quote: "It might be that we will offer the possibility for people to have a bigger hard drive, but they have that option now.

But it does not mean that we have anything in the works to introduce a different model or bigger hard drive built in," added Reeves.