@ Tindytim
Do you even know what you're talking about? At first they had hardware emulation built into the PS3 system.
To cut costs (supposedly $25 per unit) they removed the first piece: the emotion chip, aka, hardware emulation. It was because of this chip that PS3 had virtually 100% backwards compatibility. They then brought out software emulation, which through the various updates got better, but it is still NOT as compatible with all games, and still the games that are 'compatible' are susceptible to 'graphics abnormalities' Take for example a game I love, 'Tales of Vesparia'. The emulated solution messes up the graphics in certain areas, making it difficult to play.
The second, third, fourth, and fifth pieces were all removed at once: The software emulation entirely, the card readers, support for Super Audio cds (of which my father has quite a collection), and the USB ports were reduced from 4 to 2 all in an effort to reduce costs.
My point is they keep removing features of the unit... who else does that? No one. Who wants a reduced unit for the just about the same price the previous ones sold for? Not me.