Sony adds HDMI to base PS3, drops Japanese price
updated 10:25 am EDT, Fri September 22, 2006
HDMI on Base PS3
The announcement of official PlayStation 3 hardware and pricing at E3 this past May drew massive amounts of criticism to Sony: as announced, only the high-end $599 model was to include an HDMI connector, which is virtually necessary to display Blu-Ray movies protected with the Image Constraint Token (ICT) at their full 1080p resolution. Sony has made a concession to its critics at the 2006 Tokyo Game Show, reports Gamer Scan. The company has revealed that all shipping PS3s will include an HDMI connector, including the $499, 20GB version that was originally planned to use only DVI. Both versions will support the deep color of the HDMI 1.3 format that should improve visual quality and response times on supporting televisions. In addition to the improved HDTV support, Sony also reduced the Japanese price of the entry-level PS3 to the equivalent of $430 US, already negating the advantage Microsoft claimed yesterday with the introduction of its Xbox 360 HD DVD player.
