According to a recent filing to the American FCC, Sony’s Product Quality Office made a request for a "Class II permissive change" in order to make alterations to its current PS3 model. Namely, Bluetooth antennae and frequency stuff. But that’s not all.
The filing included a third serial number–CECHE01–to the current stable of PS3 SKUs; CECHA01 (60GB) and CECHB01 (20GB). The filing very clearly states that an additional model with an 80GB hard drive is in production; but, since Sony has made no official response, nothing can be confirmed — yet.
So, either PS3 is getting a third SKU, or one of the current models will be phased out. We were under the assumption that Sony was looking into ways to cut costs and drive the price of the unit down. Is it possible that PlayStation 3 will get any more expensive?
Sony has issued a response, as reported by Next Gen, stating, "As mentioned when we made the product announcement for PS3, the system will have different configurations (thus, 60GB HDD with memory card slots and Wi-Fi and 20GB HDD without memory card slots or Wi-Fi both exist).
"Application to the FCC has been made with various possibilities in mind, however, it does not lead to a new product announcement at this time."
With additional reporting by Chris Pereira.
