Australia and Europe Get Classic White PlayStation 3

A number of retailers in Australia and in Europe have put up pre-order offers for a new PlayStation 3 model, called Classic White, which will apparently be launched during November and will come complete with an extra controller and will have a 320 GB hard drive.

The white version of the PS3 will be sold for the same price as the black version of the console, which comes with a number of video games.

A white PlayStation 3 model has already been launched in Japan and Sony previously announced that the Classic White console will be offered in the United Kingdom and in Ireland.

It's not clear whether Sony has any plans to launch the white console in the United States.

Offering a variety of colors for home consoles is one way that the various producers, like Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony, can generate hype for their platforms and attract those customers that are interested in the device but have not yet bought one.

It will be interesting to see whether Nintendo and Microsoft will launch more color versions for their own home consoles.

At this point in the console generation even small differences like the color of the device can have a big impact when it comes to sales figures.

While launching cosmetic remakes for their current devices both Sony and Microsoft are thought to be working on new generation devices.

Speculation says that official announcements might be made during 2012, probably at the E3 trade show, with launches coming late in 2013.

Both hardware developers have stated that they have long term 10 year plans for their current consoles.

Nintendo has already announced the Wii U, which will arrive during 2012 and will apparently have the same processing power as its competitors and will have a touch screen integrated in the controller.