There was a place offering 60gb models in "Factory Sealed New Units" for around $500 shipped. I jumped on ordering one, but the place ended up being a scam. I'm not out any money, but I'm not getting the PS3 I wanted, either.
If I can't find a reputable place offering guaranteed-new 60gb units for a reasonable price, I'll just buy a used one online from Gamestop (prices aren't too bad). But since the 80gb unit disappeared from existence right before my eyes - even off of Sony's site - I figured I'd wait a month and see. I'd kick myself if I paid a fortune for a used 60gb unit just to see a new, improved model come out that was not much more expensive.
When i bought my 40gb model early last month, i had originally aimed to get hold of a now discontinued 60gb version, but could find none that were genuinely 'new' or from reliable sources. To be honest i've not found the lack of backwards compatibility an issue nor the lack of extra USB or card-reader ports.
I will say however, to definitely shop with a well known supplier. I bought mine from a small company, but one that uses Google Checkout. As it's turned out it's been one hell of a mistake. Their offer of a PS3, F1:CE, Drakes Fortune, CoD4 and free next day delivery for £350 was the best all around offer i could find.
I'm so used to the likes of Play.com and Amazon giving you good service i felt sure the smaller operations would try to go the extra mile to compete. How wrong i was. The console took 2 weeks to arrive - yes it was delivered the next day, but this was after taking 13 days between processing the order and taking my money and dispatching it. When it did eventually arrive it was missing the CoD4 game. It took a further 2 weeks for me to get an answer from them to why they hadn't sent me CoD4, their reply being that they can't get hold of it at the minute but will post it when they can. That didn't wash with me, it's not as if there is a world shortage of CoD4 PS3 disks, every high street store has shelves full of them. So i leaned heavily on Google Checkout to kick the companies backside over it. However, this morning i got a reply stating that since the CoD4 game was advertised as 'free' they are not at liberty to supply it, but if i send them the whole package back they'll refund me my money. The ****tards.
I'll now have to save all my game data onto a USB dongle, wipe all my digi cam photos off the hard drive, repackage the whole lot up and post it back to them - out of my own money - and wait for them to refund me (god knows how long
that will take). This will leave me well out of pocket, certainly more than it would cost me to just go out and buy CoD4, but it's the principle of the matter and the fact that they'll now have a secondhand PS3 on their hands. I'll be making sure it appears second hand too.
There might also be an issue that since i've 'opened' (removed the packaging) the two other games, they won't accept them to be refunded. If anyone, especially in the UK, is about to buy a PS3 game or Blu-ray film in the near future, i'd appreciate it if they'd
carefully remove the cellophane wrapper by unfolding the overlaps at the top and post them to me (i'll pay the postage obviously) so i can attempt to reseal the 'used' games giving the company as few excuses as possible to not give me a full refund.
Moral of the story - buy from someone trusted, even if they are not the cheapest.