"Phil Harrison, vice president for Sony Computer Entertainment, has said they are unlikely to release multiple versions of the PlayStation 3.

Speaking at the Game Developers Conference Europe yesterday, Harrison criticised Microsoft's approach to go with two SKUs for the Xbox 360, saying that it will be unlikely that Sony will opt for the same approach with the PlayStation 3.

"Are there two versions of the Xbox 360 that people want to buy, is my question," said Harrison. "I don't know. This is my personal view, not my corporate view, but when I look at those formats, I think it just confuses the audience. They don't know which one to buy, developers don't know which one to create for, and retailers don't know which one to stock."

"So I think we wouldn't take that strategy. We wouldn't create confusion," concluded Harrison, but is releasing a separate hard drive any better than releasing two SKUs? Surely the same 'confusion' will still apply as consumers wonder whether or not they want a hard drive and developers ponder whether or not utilising the hard drive will hamper sales.

Of course, Sony could pull a rabbit out of a hat and release the PlayStation 3 with a hard drive as standard, but with the much talked about high price of the console, adding more hardware to the machine seems unlikely."