Pack the piggy bank for the PS3 (Update)

In a report released this morning, an analyst with Lazard Capital Markets claimed that up to 80 percent of the PlayStation 3 consoles available at launch will be the hefty high-end version — that’s $600 in case you’ve been locked in a closet all year.Also included in his little homework assignment is the estimation that Sony will “ship another 800,000 units via air freight through the end of the year (1.2 million units total in calendar year ’06) and another 1.2 million units for Japan.”Now, we’re not sure how many would want to pay for the lesser PS3 to begin with, but if this is really what Sony is going to do, why not just make all the PS3s the $599 version? Why even have that ridiculous lesser version to begin with? Did they learn nothing from the silly 360 core package option? If you’re going to go balls out and put that hefty price tag out there, then Sony should just fully commit and make their fans really cough up the loot.[Update: In other PS3 production news, GameDaily says Sony has confirmed that the final PS3 assembly won’t start until the end of the month. Ouch, that’s cutting it a little close, isn’t it?]