[Drew.]

I copied this from a forum

"If you’re getting it just for playing video games then the 12GB one is for you, 500GB is way too much, plus it’s more expensive and you will never use up all of the 500GB (I have a 250GB Xbox but that’s hardly filled up). Also the 12GB is an SSD (Solid State Drive) not a HDD (Hard Disk Drive), which basically means it has no moving parts, files load up faster, and is cooler and quieter than a traditional hard drive. Apart from storage the two consoles are identical everywhere else."

and this

"To be honest, I would get the 500gb PS3 for the simple reason that 12 gb is not enough. Most games require you to install the data for the game in order to speed up rendering and/or decompress data on the disc and the data is usually 8GB or higher."