Sony Confirms 80GB PS3 For Korea Only

After months of rumour floating around the net and the blogsphere, Sony today have finally confirmed plans to launch an 80Gb PS3 on June 16th. Whoa now, hold your horses. Don't pop the champagne just yet. This baby is only aimed for Korean shores for now, and there appear to be no immediate plans for any other territories just yet [via our friends Sony Protection Group].

All was revealed on the Sony Computer Entertainment Korea website, with a stated retail price of 518,000 won. That's about $581 US or 412 Euro to the rest of us, and seems a tad unfair when you consider 60Gb models in the States are selling in the range of $575 to $700. However, after confirming the details to be true a SCEE spokesperson later confirmed that the 80GB model will be the only version to go on sale there [Source: GamesWorld Network].

In light of the Sony FCC filing and the Xbox 360 Elite 120GB, speculation has been rife for some time now, but the model will only differ from the 60GB in terms of the hard drive. “The chassis of the 80GB Korean PlayStation 3 is identical to the chassis of the European version. The only exception is the larger hard drive”, added the spokerperson. Incidentally, the new chassis launched in Europe back in March, also limited the amount of PlayStation and PlayStation2 titles backwards compatible with the system [Source: GamesDaily.biz and Virgin.net].