The Silver PS2 (v9) was released today (1st October). In fact Charlie_ps2 and dust2dust already have one...
it does indeed play DVD-R and DVD-RW but you still need a modchip e.g. the Messiah2 (v1.31).
Of course it does not play cd-r backups without a mod-chip, can you really imagine Sony allowing backups to boot? it'd be a pirates hey-day if that ever happened
