Sony seems to be on a roll, what with the PSP-3000 refresh accompanied by an announcement on a brand new PS3. No, this model won’t be able to cure cancer or snag 9 gold medals in the pool at the next Olympics, but it does offer additional hard drive space, featuring the highest capacity hard drive in a PS3 to date - 160GB. This PS3 SKU will hit North America later this November in a limited edition bundle, accompanied by the highly acclaimed Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune game.

It makes me wonder whether the only way for Sony to up the ante when it comes to hardware revision is to throw in larger hard drives. Where will we see the trend stop? 250GB? 320GB? 500GB? I guess this is a logical progression, but with the PS3 being touted to have a 10 year life cycle and we’re not even halfway past that number yet, it will be interesting to see just how bloated the internal hard drive it ships with gets. Consumers who love hoarding content will be pleased with this newer SKU, while folks who want to take advantage of the PLAYSTATION Network’s video delivery service will be pleased that they have more space to store new blockbuster movies as well as popular TV shows that are downloaded.

The 160GB PS3 will arrive this November for $499.99, and in addition to the mentioned game, it will also feature a PLAYSTATION Network Voucher for PAIN and a DUALSHOCK 3 wireless controller. I’m not too sure about you, but if you already own a PS3, would you sell that off on eBay and pick up this new bundle? I wouldn’t do so, after all, DIY hard drive upgrades on the PS3 easily negates the need to pick a higher capacity model off-the-shelf in the first place. Still, you get double the storage space by throwing in another $100 compared to the $399.99 80GB PS3 system.

Press Release