TOKYO, Sept 19 — Announced during the Tokyo Game Show keynote today, Sony’s PlayStation 3 is indeed due a further hardware revision this autumn, shedding size and weight and sporting a more corrugated look. In short, there’s no price drop, but more bang for your buck instead.

Known colloquially as the Super Slim, and following on from Sony’s original PS3 in 2006 and the PS3 Slim of 2009, the 4000-series model is 20 per cent smaller than its predecessor, less than half the size of the original, and comes in several configurations.

Those in North American territories can choose from a bundle that comes with a copy of “Uncharted 3’s” Game of the Year edition, a US$30 (RM90) voucher for online shooter “Dust 514,” and 250GB of hard drive space for music, movies and games (arriving September 25, US$269) and a higher capacity 500GB machine that packs in “Assassin’s Creed III” (October 30, US$299).

European regions have two types of Super Slim confirmed for September 28, one slung with the 500GB drive and a copy of football game “FIFA 13” (€299), and the other containing a minimal 12GB of flash memory (€229), comparable to the most basic Xbox 360 unit priced at €199.

Japanese territories have a choice of two colours to pick from on October 4, with the 250GB Super Slim available in white as well as the standard black for ¥24,980; its 500GB sibling asks for an extra ¥5,000 on top.

Supporting the new model is a range of 40 budget-priced games, in European regions at least, marked at €19.99 for retail copies and some of them (such as “Assassin’s Creed I, II” and “Brotherhood,” “LittleBigPlanet” and “Sports Champions”) set for €14.99 as PlayStation Store downloads.

The move can be seen not so much as a response to the rise of smartphone and tablet entertainment — the PlayStation Vita has been deployed on that front — but as an easy way into the Sony fold for those otherwise courted by Nintendo’s Wii U this November. — AFP/Relaxnews