This would be a good thing by Sony, and I think perceived as a proactive move on the heels of Blu-Ray's recent wins. This is the point at which Blu-Ray stops being a noose around the PS3's neck, and becomes a key differentiator vs. the XBox360.
A $300 PS3 is a great deal almost as much as a $99 HDDVD player. Microsoft can come out with a Blu-Ray atttachment drive, but the total cost of ownership will be in Sony's favor.
Sony sacrificed the PS3 (at least out of the gate) in a big gamble to push Blu-Ray, and now it seems it will actually pay off. If they are going to really try to build enough momentum to catch up to Microsoft, they need to strike while the iron is hot, and with all the Blu-Ray talk recently, the iron is now hot.
I know the games matter the most, but in terms of general marketing and holiday consumers, a $300 Blu-Ray playing PS3 is gonna be big. Until a couple of months ago the PS3 is probably the last next gen console I would buy, but now it is likely neck-and-neck with the Wii for me personally.
Everybody has sales projections and this site has great sales data, but the biggest key factor for PS3 was Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD, and it was impossible to predict if and when that battle would dramatically shift one way or the other. HD-DVD shot their wad with the $99 players, but it was not enough to even up disk movie sales vs. the PS3 owner base.
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