Over the last week, news and blog articles have been popping up globally after pictures emerged appearing to show various un-assembled parts of plastic bearing the Playstation logo and the “PS3″ writing and font. These bits of plastic seemed to belong to a mysterious new unseen design for the PS3 console.
Articles regarding this apparent re-design of the Playstation 3 (nicknamed by the media the “PS3 Slimline” or “PS3 Slim”) spread like wildfire thanks to reports that Sony is going to be making 2 separate announcements at E3 next month regarding hardware re-designs. One of these is generally believed to be a new psp, but the second remained a mystery, and then out of the blue these images appeared and everybody then started to believe that this second hardware re-design announcement could in-fact be a new ps3 design.
As articles spread regarding this new mystery re-design, so did the images taken from the “Levelup China” website that kicked it off in the first place. Levelup China had posted these images up and then suddenly the article and the images disappeared from their site (but not before plenty of people had grabbed the images) which led to speculation that Sony had tried to silence them so as not to let the cat out of the bag too early, this of course just seemed to clarify it for most article and blog writers.
But then a twist was added to this whole equation, CVG (Computer and Video Games) was told by Sony UK that Sony “currently don’t have any plans for a redesigned PS3″, and that they “don’t know anything about the system in the photos.”. This caused a 50/50 split in opinion with some people sure that this was the real deal, and others believing these rumours to be ludicrous.
But then early this week various sites who had posted up these images of the so called PS3 Slim started receiving e-mails from a law firm called “Li Mo & Associates” from Taipei in Taiwan telling them to “immediately remove those pages and keep our request confidential”, but seeing as news and blog writers don’t like being told what to do, most of them did neither of those things, and some even went as far as posting up the entire e-mail. I read the e-mail at Spong and decided it was time to find out a little more, Mog was on a mission!
First I traced down Li Mo. After coming accross a news article on the Law section of the official Harvard website it seemed that Li Mo was infact an author of numerous books on Taiwanese law and Chinese history and he practiced Law at Li Mo & Associates. This finding confirmed that the law firm was genuine, after this I came across the website for the firm (http://www.limo.com.tw/), but couldn’t find anything truly enlightening except the fact that the person who had issued the e-mail (James Lan otherwise known as Hung-Jeng Lan) specialised in Intellectual property rights and corporate law. Unfortunately I could find no information anywhere as regards to the client they represented.
But then Spong came through and made an interesting discovery of what they called “Genuine Fakes”, I suggest you view their article here.
In a nutshell, they came across some “Genuine Fake” console producers in China who make shoddy looking replicas of official consoles but they don’t contain the same hardware that official machines do, most open up and you find they actually take cartridges rather than discs, you can view one such manufacturer of these “Genuine Fakes” here.
It is now believed by most of the sites that received this e-mail, that the law firm are not representing Sony but are in actual fact representing one of these many “Genuine Fake” console producers, and are issuing the e-mail in order to take theirselves out of the spotlight and out of the view of Sony’s ever seeing eyes.
I don’t think we have seen the end of this story just yet, and we will be keeping our eyes on this one.
Sources:
http://www.ps3daily.co.uk/20090515/sony-puts-an-end-to-the-slimline-ps3-rumours/
http://news.spong.com/article/17975/Genuine_Fake_PS3_Slim_in_the_Wild_Fun
http://news.spong.com/article/17968/PS3_Slim_Confirmed_Lawyers_Demand_SPOnG_Removes_Pix
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=214873
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=214986
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Tags: ps3
9 responses so far ↓
1 gggggggg // May 19, 2009 at 12:58 pm
That console looks nothing like the one in the leaked pictures.
The leaked one is real.
2 comoa // May 19, 2009 at 3:27 pm
Sony “currently don’t have any plans for a redesigned PS3″
Perhaps that’s because it has been redesigned already and ready to go for E3, so it would make sense to say that there are no plans to redesign the redesign?
Plus, it would be stupid to think that they are not thinking about a slimmer version or that there are “no plans”, that’s BS for sure because the amount of cash Sony have lost on this thing, it would be a first to try and get the PS3 smaller parts to knock down the price, but still sell it at RRP.
Also, engraving things on things can cost a lot more than you think. They charge by the letter, so again in order to cut costs, they are only using 3 letters/numbers as oppose to 12 letters/numbers.
3 mobiletone // May 19, 2009 at 6:45 pm
i have a “genuine fake” iPod, they do a good job of ripping off the designs. i still think i’d buy a dodgy ps3 just for the hell of it anyway, imagine, a snes that looked like a ps3!! start checking those sunday markets/ebay soon guys
ps: i did wonder if Spong Mog was you, small world.
4 Mog // May 19, 2009 at 6:48 pm
lol, you know me, I get everywhere xD
I am like a happy bouncy version of Swine Flu, but one that brings positivity, happiness and news xD
5 mobiletone // May 19, 2009 at 7:05 pm
there is only one Mog! ;P
6 Jack // May 19, 2009 at 7:59 pm
Its not a “genuine fake”. Note that even China has to abide by international trade laws, and most “genuine fake” manufacturers circumvent laws by releasing products that merely resemble the real thing rather than directly copy it.
The leaked box art actually directly uses logos and images that are property of Sony. No manufacturer in their right mind would due that, because they are still liable to lawsuits (since Sony does business in China as well).
The fact is, the photos are seemingly leaked from an official PS3 manufacturer, Maintek, which is based in mainland China. Maintek is a subsidiary of the international company Asus, based in Taiwan. It is not inconceivable that Asus hired a lawfirm from their host country to send these C&D letters, while trying to maintain a low profile. Probably a bad idea, but these guys are probably not used to the way the Internet works.
7 reakt // May 22, 2009 at 8:02 pm
Hmmmm…. I’m not convinced what we saw in the pics was a “genuine fake”. I still think it was leaked pics of a genuine genuine. Anyway, we’ll know for sure soon enough (either at e3 or a few months after that, in time for Christmas).
8 matt // May 29, 2009 at 1:06 pm
i dont think the ps3 slim is real its a fake anyway sony are probs are workin on other plans atm eg MAG
9 Humbug // Jun 12, 2009 at 11:14 am
Having gutted my PS3 & observing the innards as compared to the leaked photos, I could definitely see it as being legit. Granted, the pics above arent the ones I observed on other sites, but the other pix I’ve seen most definitely resemble a slightly revamped mainboard with the same style cooling setup. The layout of the external case is shrunken accordingly & the ports for the USB connections as well as the power/HDD lights appear to be consistent with the PS3 design.
To make a price cut possible SONY has to slim down the machine in order to cut manufacturing costs first. My bet is a slimmer PS3, no backwards compatibility (yet, later through full SW emulation as PS2 sales die off), maybe a slightly smaller HDD since it’s easily upgraded. They could easily knock 100 off the MSRP & take a small loss or knock off 50 & try to make SOME profit, albeit slight. Maybe 50 off & include a bundled game.
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