Just as I've finished criticizing the new PSP's features (mainly its battery life, which hasn't improved one bit), I stumbled upon this rumor saying something about a 40GB PS3 being on the way. Apparently, this is Sony's solution to really cutting the machine's price to a much more affordable $399. Sounds good, doesn't it? Again, it's just a rumor for now.

This piece of news, courtesy of the new issue of Game Informer has been brought forth by GamersCreed, which posted the following: "According [to] Game Informer magazine, a $399 40gig PS3 system is on the way, but it will have no backwards compatibility. They actually expected to hear the announcement at E3 on it. So they may have just heard different rumblings altogether."

Yes well, don't be surprised, you saw that coming. What, you didn't honestly think that Sony would finally give gamers the premium system for that money, now did you? You have to admit though, 40 gigs of space and no backwards compatibility is actually not that bad for a $399 PS3. Be honest with yourself now, for how long have you been scratching your eyes, because you just couldn't raise the money to get one? Well, that's all over now.

There's another good thing coming out of the whole deal though. If this rumor does turn out to be true, Microsoft will be prompted to cut the price on their respective machine (the Xbox 360) and then things should get really interesting.

Sadly though, from the looks of things, even for Sony is very unlikely to release yet another machine (and a worse one at that) and let's not even mention that backwards compatibility anymore. Sony knows they can't afford making a mistake such as this, so even though let's say they do launch the 40GB PS3, it's very unlikely that it won't feature back-compatibility. Let's just wait and see what happens.