Hirai reassures 40GB PS3 owners

Sony boss Kaz Hirai has moved to reassure European consumers who recently purchased a 40GB PS3 – telling them they still have a very powerful”, high capacity machine.

Talking in the wake of SCEE’s announcement that it would be phasing the 40GB model out in Europe to make room for a new 80GB SKU – Hirai’s personal idea – he added that the move was proof of PS3’s ability to ‘evolve’.

Hirai told MCV:

The PS3 is a console that evolves and specifications will change over time. Ultimately, if the consumers require a higher capacity hard drive, the ability to do that is there.

"40GB is obviously less than 80GB, but it’s still a high number and a very powerful machine. We strive to evolve and offer the most compelling value we can at any point in time. If consumers require extra hard drive, they can just swap it out.

We brought in the 80GB because we wanted to make sure we continued offering the value proposition to consumers in the true fashion of PlayStation.

"We heard a lot of response from the consumers basically saying 40GB is nice, but with a lot of additional download products were offering via the PlayStation Network, consumers were looking for a higher capacity hard drive.

"We thought it was a great time to introduce it at E3, but also make sure that we continued to keep the pricing the same.”