The myriad of PS3 hardware options, in a speadsheet

Thinking about buying a PS3 but confused about the differences between each? Joystiq has the surprisingly complicated spreadsheet, which those owning large previous-gen Playstation collections must consult.

1. [Clay]

   Personally, I like the conspiracy theory that Sony has secretly been long at work on a software-based, plugin-structured backwards compatibility layer for years, one that was never going to be ready for the original Playstation 3 hardware launch (thus requiring hardware BC at the time) but would ultimately pave the way for the continued use of the PS2 platform as the “lite” companion to PS3.

   The attention paid to the PS2 at this year’s E3, continuing the “10 year console” badge Sony likes to use, shows the system is still not far from the company’s hive-mind. Could this have actually been planned all along?

2. [edgore]

   I would not count on Sony providing backward compatibility in a future update. If you really need backwards compatibility you should get a used machine with HW BC(I’ve been very happy with mine). If you assume that Sony has a mystery plan then you are probably going to be disappointed, since any increase in sales of non-BC PS3 is just more evidence to Sony management that BC is not something people care about…so why devote dollars to adding it?