After a week full of rumors, Italian retail leaks and the FCC filing, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe has finally confirmed that the new 40GB Playstation 3 will go on sale for €399 or £299 in the U.K. on October 10th.

Besides loosing backward compatibility with the PS2 and not having a memory card reader, the new PS3 model only has two rather than four USB 2.0 ports. The most important issue is the lack of backward compatibility, because we are talking about the "all mighty" Sony that always talked about how backward compatibility will never be abandoned, but as you can see, times have changed.

According to the explanation from the SCEE, the lack of backwards compatibility happened because "both the reduced emphasis placed on this feature amongst later purchasers of the PS3, as well as the availability of a more extensive line-up of PS3 specific titles." A total of 65 titles across all genres will be available by Christmas.

GameDaily BIZ has also managed to get an explanation from Nick Sharples, a  SCEE spokesman who stated that "We have made clear on many occasions that our priority is on developing innovative new features and services for the PS3 and not on backwards compatibility." and he also said that there is a 60GB Starter Pack with an extra SIXAXIS controller for all those who "consider backward compatibility important".

SCEE has also announced that the mentioned 60GB Starter Pack will be sold for €499, while in the U.K. and Ireland it will be replaced by a 60GB value pack at a price of £349.

Europe has it, and now everybody waits for the SCEA to announce it for North America.