Ever since the PlayStation 3 went on the market people have had issues with the fact that it seemed to be an extremely over-priced product. Between the initial UK price-point of £425 to the numerous extras you had to buy and the cost of the games themselves. Now, though, the price of various aspects of the console are starting to settle somewhat and Sony’s latest update should help in the future.

The Japanese company has released a new downloadable update for the PlayStation 3 that allows the system to support the new, cheaper-to-manufacture Blu-ray discs. Thanks to the new firmware update, version 2.20, there is now support for the Low-to-High (LTH) Blu-ray recordable discs. These new discs use an organic dye recording layer, meaning that those making the discs can now make use of existing facilities that are used for the creation of regular CD-Rs and DVD-Rs to make the new Blu-ray discs. Thanks to the need for completely new creation processes being removed, this in turn reduces the overall cost of production and will most likely lead to a slight reduction in cost for everyone in general.

For illustrative purposes, version 1.2 BD-Rs, which hit Japan in February, are just ¥4,704 (roughly £24) for a pack of five, whereas the price for the previous Blu-Ray discs was a massive £52! This could definitely prove to be of major benefit for Sony and the PlayStation’s appeal to gamers all over the world that are looking for the highest quality gaming at a far more reasonable price.

Stick around for further updates here on Playstatic…