And at the end of September Sony said that the 40GB PS3 was "just rumor and speculation". While this isn't a flat out denial, it's technically a denial because they're saying it is only rumor and speculation, and therefore not real.
Microsoft called the 40GB PS3 back in July:
http://www.joystiq.com/2007/07/25/ngai-croal-vs-ms-attack-dog-in-ps3-bet/
Sony denied it back then. They also just recently said there will be no PS3 price drops this year. So they're obviously playing with words with the intent to mislead consumers. Most people would consider this a lie. Consider that it's like telling your spouse you didn't cheat on her with a girl when you actually cheated on her with two. You didn't lie, right? Wrong.
They've been doing this a lot. They said the 20GB model was discontinued because no one wanted the lower end model at a lower price point, and now they re-releasing an even lower end model with the same price descrepancy. They also said there'd be no 80GB model, no price drop for the 60GB model (oh, wait, it wasn't a price drop it was a clearance sale at a lower price, right?), and a slew of other things.
Sony loves lying to their customers. If they didn't, they wouldn't do it so often.
