Could Sony be on the verge of announcing a cheaper price point for PS3 after all, and does the timing of this rumour have anything to do with spoiling the Halo party?

Sony’s having none of it – as you might expect – but rumours persist that a cut-down version of the Playstation 3 is heading to the UK soon for a not overly-terrifying price of just £300. We’re talking a PS3 featuring a 40 rather than 60GB hard drive and with the loss of features like backwards compatibility and, puzzlingly, USB ports. If the latter turns out to be true it’s back to wired or battery-powered controllers we go.

This latest story originally sprang from Sky News, which quotes an unnamed source in 'electronics manufacture' who reveals that the same Taiwanese co. responsible for producing the PS2 (Foxconn) has been approached to build the lower-specced version of the console. Well, it sounds plausible. Sorta.

Of course it was originally expected that Sony would announce a price cut of some description at the Tokyo Game Show last week. However, following Kaz Hirai’s flat denial of such a move the rumour-mill is now predicting tomorrow instead – presumably on the basis that Sony would like to maximise the Microsoft cheese-off factor. Guess we’ll see in the next 24 hours, if not sooner. Either way Sony is nuts if they don’t do something about price soon, right...?