Sony is increasing the exposure of the game for the next installment of uncharted. I mean it may look stupid but if you look closely you'll see this is exactly what they are doing. The more xposure uncharted gets the more succesful the franchise will be....think about it.

Problem is, you can get a 80GB + a 320G HDD for ~$450 now...

Otherwise it would be too expensive for Sony because they'd have to pay their own devs the money they deserve for each copy sold. Also, the numbers would artificially rise as for each PS3 sold there would be one of these games sold even though those games might not have sold that much; would you imagine Wii Sports, Wii play or Wii Fit selling if they weren't bundled with hardware? They'd sell very little. However, Nintendo doesn't have to pay that much to their own devs anyway since these are probably considered budget titles inside of Nintendo, unlike AAA games on PS3. It's not worth it for Sony to ignore 60 bucks of sales outside of bundles and at the same time having to pay the developers their proportional amount for each new game sale; that's why PS3 is usually bundled with relatively old games, demos or games that aren't very popular (like LBP in Japan or Formula 1 and Heavenly Sword in Europe).

I am hopefully getting mine tomorrow or Monday, my 60gb died on me so I am returning it, giving the new console gained from that to my father-in-law and we are trading his in to split the cost in games. I figure I will end up putting in a 500gb drive next spring once tax time rolls in because there should be plenty to choose from, though I will end up with a Western Digital despite other options. It's a win for me everyway I cut it, I need a new copy of Uncharted anyway, and $500 is well worth it

they arent using lbp cause its new and want it to sell by itself. they are using uncharted cause its been out already and people are waiting for it to come down to 30 to play it. its only 7 hours max to pass it.

I saw this in Target today for $499.99.

Grandma drops a big check for me :D (Plus LittleBigPlanet)

why is sony selling another 500$ console? they should be lowering the price NOT highering it! not to mention 80 gig is more than enough for a gaming console and the fact that uncharted is a year old game, at least bundle something thats really good like mgs4 or something.

Man that is cheap! a 160GB HDD with a game too.

so i'm correct in assuming that no more ps3 consoles will be produced with chrome trimming, or 4 usb ports?

you guys how do you put the hard drive on ur ps3 consule cuz i got a 40 gig and 500gig hard drive

I'm actually waiting for the game to drop as a greatest hits. It technically should be already.