Sony to phase out $500 PS3

SAN FRANCISCO: Sony plans to phase out the cut-priced $499 model of its PlayStation 3 video game machine, leaving only a higher capacity $599 model for sale in the US, the company said on Monday.

The revelation undid some of the praise Sony won from the gaming industry last week for its 17% price cut on the machine, a move seen as levelling the playing field with Microsoft’s Xbox 360 console. Sony dropped the price on the PS3, which comes with a 60-gigabyte hard drive and high-definition Blu-ray DVD player, by $100 last week in a bid to boost sales of the console by passing on lower costs onto consumers.

It also said it would launch a new model featuring a hard drive with 33% more capacity — 80 gigabytes — and a copy of its off-road racing game 'MotorStorm' in August.