Will U.S. get 80GB version of PlayStation 3?

Sony said Wednesday that it is considering putting out a new version of its struggling PlayStation 3 game console in the United States with an 80GB hard drive. That's the storage capacity that will come on the South Korean version of the PS3.

To date, the PS3 has come with a 60GB hard drive. A 20GB version was discontinued in the United States but still sells in Japan.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

According to the Associated Press, Sony Computer Entertainment representative Satoshi Fukuoka said that the company is thinking about adapting the storage capacities of the PS3 for different regions.

"Increasing capacity for models is one of the options," Fukuoka told the AP. "We make such decisions depending on the needs of the market, and every country is different."

Sony says it will begin selling the 80GB PS3 in South Korea on June 16, and Fukuoka told the AP that the company may well bring that version to the U.S.

"No decision has been made on other markets, although the company is considering selling it in the U.S. and elsewhere," Fukuoka told the AP.

But in an e-mail to CNET News.com, Sony spokeswoman Kimberly Otzman said, "We haven't confirmed any plans to bring the 80GB model to (North America/the United States)."

Otzman also included Sony's official statement on the matter: "We are constantly looking at new technologies, services and configurations to meet the evolving needs of our PlayStation gamers, but at this time we have no announcement regarding any changes in our PS3 product offering in North America."

Either way, it's hard to know if adding capacity to the PS3's hard drive would solve the problems that Sony is having with the console in the U.S., where it is third in an increasingly bitter next-gen console battle with Nintendo's Wii and Microsoft's Xbox 360.