Microsoft may tell people that they are confident with the way sales are going and they are confident that the PS3 will not overtake the XBOX 360 in sales this holiday season, but there is reason for disbelief. This holiday season can mean announcing a new XBOX 360 Slim soon to counter the PS3 Slim, if sales dip and if the PS3 has higher sales. If they don’t that may be another story, but it can still happen.

If Microsoft were to release an XBOX 360 Slim, they can market it as a new reliable console that is more reliable than the previous versions of the console. A console redesign could be a good marketing move to get rid of the stigma of 360′s continuous breaking down. They can use the knowledge that they have now on heat design and with that they can redesign the XBOX 360 so that it has less faliure rates than before. That would mean less to no RRoD’s, E74 Errors, or other issues.

There is something stopping Microsoft from redesigning a slimmer console. A problem that they face would be that they can’t redesign a slimmer console until they get to the point where they can get the CPU and GPU in the same package. Sony shrinking the cell processor down to 45nm and other components allowed them to build a slimmer version of the console, but Microsoft still has a Falcon 65 nm chipset in their consoles.

This holiday season will be a turning point for better or for worse for Microsoft. Do you think that there will be a slimmer XBOX 360 in the works?

With the announcement of the PS3 Slim (not officially called the PS3 Slim) we have been seeing new things coming from Sony on the PS3. As in a  previous article, Sony planning new PS3 Box art with PS3 Slim Announcement?, Sony is now in the process of rebranding it’s flagship PS3 in the market. With the  announcement of the PS3 Slim, it was more than just a new version of the PS3. It was a whole rebranding process with a new logo to go with it.

The new logo is now a third for the PS3 in it’s lifespan. With the original PLAYSTATION 3 Logo with the Spider-Man font as the original marketing figure for the PS3 it was very effective. It was effective in the way that the public quickly made the comparison with the Spider-Man font and were not very happy with it. Lately instead of seeing the PLAYSTATION 3 logo on commercials they were seeing something new in a sense. Instead of it being called PLAYSTATION 3 it was now just PS3, still in the Spider-Man font. This marked the first transition into being known as the PS3 instead of PlayStation 3.

The PS3 Slim has come with a change and Sony’s John Koller has told Ars Technica that, “We’re in the process of replacing the Spider-Man font to the PS3 logo. [The new design] will be the logo moving forward, that will be in place on the hardware and peripherals and software, starting with Uncharted 2.” With that information it confirmed that the PS3 was not only changing its logo, it was changing it’s whole image. Starting with the logo on the PS3, then the logo on the box art, and finally the logo for marketing.

Now to follow up on our previous post about the new box art, Sony planning new PS3 Box art with PS3 Slim Announcement?, the final design has been released and is shown in the new image from the Gundam bundle box. On the left you could see the new PS3 logo on the box, without PLAYSTATION 3 in Spider-Man font on the side, and with a MUCH cleaner look.

With this change, things are starting to be more consistent and it gives Sony a cleaner look on their products. Sony has gone back to their old marketing way’s and if they can market the PS3 like they did with the PS2, they can not only re-gain the lead this console generation, they can win it.

The PS3 slim has been rumored for quite some time. But now it is confirmed that there will be an actual PS3 Slim.

Kmart, Best Buy, Gamestop, and other websites have made live web pages that allow you to pre order the upcoming PS3 Slim. The availability date is not known exactly at this moment. It is known that it will be released before September 1st, but Gamestop has changed their date numerous times for when the pre-orders will ship. They first had it as the 26th, then the 25th, and Best Buy shows the 24th.

The PS3 Slim will have a 120GB hard drive, 2 USB ports, will bitstream Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio direct to your receiver (something the old one does not have), and unfortunantly no backwards compatibility with PS2 games just yet.

The new price point of the console will be $299 for both the old PS3 and the new slimer model.

Name: GamesCom
When: August 18, 2009, 12pm-3pm ET | 11am-2pm CT | 9am-12pm PT
Where: Cologne, Germany

Where to find Sony GamesCom coverage:

IGN – Live Blog Coverage
GameSpot – Live Blog Coverage
EuroGamer – Live Blog Coverage

What to hopefully expect announced:

- PS3 Slim
- PS3 Backwards Compatibility with PS2 Games
- PS3 Price Cut
- Firmware 3.0
- New PSN Features/EU Video Store
- GT5 Release Date
- Massive LittleBigPlanet announcement
- PSP Go App Store Information
- Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker on PSP
- New PSP game ‘Dead Nation’
- Demos of games

There is a new PlayStation 3 box art that is floating around with a significant change. Instead of the PlayStation 3 Spider-Man font on the left side of the box, it has now been moved to the top again, like the PS2′s box art. With the recent leaked images of the supposed PS3 Slim and it’s new font, it looks like they’ve got rid of the Spider-Man font to coincide with the PS3 Slim.

The new box art is much neater/cleaner than the old PS3 box art (shown below). The old one had text and information all over the place. On the left there would be the PlayStation 3 Logo and on the top there would be the new “Only On PlayStation” text, where the PlayStation had a different font than the PS3 font, and the PlayStation Network logo to show there is online play. When compared to the new one, all the information is on top for you to read.

When will we see the change? Who knows, but let’s hope it is announced during GamesCom ton Tuesday August 18th, this week, with the PS3 Slim by it’s side. I personally would welcome the change, what do you think?

Thanks to the anonymous tipster that sent us the new box art.

With this information it could mean that with this implementation, Sony would want full backwards compatibility in all PS3 Slims by its launch. There is no denying that there is a PS3 Slim with all the recent news of Sony signing manufacturing agreements with both Foxconn and Pegatron to build a revised model in time for a July delivery.

When could all this be announced though, well  The Games Convention is the 31st of July to the 2nd of August, which they can announce it then with the price cut. This is just in time for the holidays and making GT5 a bigger possibility it will come out this year.

[Read]