European PS3 has less functionality than US, Japan

Man, this is just getting ludicrous.

Not only are European PS3 buyers getting gouged in pricing terms - paying as much as 40% more for the console than our brethren overseas - but it turns out that European consoles are actually going to have less functionality, too.

How can this be? Well, in a bid to cut the cost of making the PS3, the hardware chips that enable PS2 backwards compatibility are being stripped out.

Stripped out.

The chips will be replaced with software emulation, with the result that backwards compatibility for European consoles will be, according to Sony, significantly less.

According to Reuters, "The backwards compatibility is not going to be as good as the U.S. and Japan models," a Sony spokesman said. "Rather than concentrate on PS2 backwards compatibility, in the future, company resources will be increasingly focused on developing new games and entertainment features exclusively for PS3."

Great. Most people probably wouldn't mind about not having backwards compatibility, but the fact that US and Japan get it and we don't is, frankly, galling. Let's face it - Sony's deal is getting worse by the day.

Let us know your thoughts over in the forums. Try to keep it clean.