Sony America’s John Koller has revealed that the PlayStation 3 Slim will not include PS2 backwards compatibility, arguing that punters will fork out for the machine with the primary intention of indulging in PS3 gaming only.
Speaking to gaming blog Kotaku, the hardware marketing boss commented, "Backwards compatibility is off the table.”
Koller went on to insist that research has shown that a substantial chunk of consumers who purchase Sony’s black box are doing so only to play PS3 games, and haven’t touched PS2 products for some time.
"Now that we’re at a point where we’re three years into the lifecycle of the PS3, there are so many PS3 disc-based games that are available that we think – and noticed this from our research – that most consumers that are purchasing the PS3 cite PS3 games as a primary [reason],” he said.
“And it’s not just like 50 or 60 percent. It’s well into the 80 or 90 percentile range… Most of those are consumers who have not utilized their PS2 for a little while and they’re ready to jump into the PlayStation 3."
Elsewhere, Koller said he expects the Slim model to replace its big brother within the next couple of months, with the current 80GB SKU to see its last days at retail next month, while the 120GB version is expected to linger for a while longer.
The PS3 Slim will retail for $299 USD and goes on sale during the first week of September.