forgot to repost that link

http://slickdeals.net/?sduid=0&t=711313&u2=http://www.sony.com/sonycard/ps3

It's such a big deal with so many ramifications that I really do want to wait until next week before we go buckwild. These rumors are all unfounded thus far, with zero reliable sources, and a whole bunch of posts cross linking each other, with one blog referencing another blog referencing another blog, with the origin being a poster (not admin) relying on "sources." Just wait, I think.

I'm quoting you because Toys R' Us was one of the first stores to start circulating about the price cut for the PS3 and 360; sources for the 360 price cut falling more through the cracks than the PS3, but still appearing here and there.

In 6 days we can expect a price cut?! Unless web sites start blazing with more and more reports of the PS3 getting a price cut, it ain't going to happen; not that fast anyway.

Okay, so I've done a bit more research into this just to try to get some idea, even though I'd said I'd wait. Still not saying it's absolutely impossible, but this is what I've found:

1) The "299.99 PS3" receipt is a fake. Or rather, it's a employee deal, and not applicable to regular customers. 

2) Many of these "rumors" from the Slicknet boards are much older than one would guess. For example, this one, linked to in the linked article (again, this entire story is links within links within links to forum posts, not actual sources):

http://forums.slickdeals.net/showpost.php?p=9578520&postcount=162

Says that we'd see a price drop announcement next week -- which was the week of January 11th.

Several are by the same person, such as this one:

http://forums.slickdeals.net/showpost.php?p=9578520&postcount=162

And this one:

http://forums.slickdeals.net/showpost.php?p=9641634&postcount=25

As you can see, the guy who originally called for an announced price drop at CES last week is the same guy later on.

All of these "rumors" come from a single thread, this one:

http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?p=9641634#post9641634

Which is actually about using a 100 dollar gift card to make the PS3 299, and it somehow spun out of control from there.

3) Sony has never announced that they've cut the price of PS3 production in half, as the story claims.

4) The rumors about Paramount defection have now been proven categorically false by Paramount themselves, but the article linked suggests otherwise.

5) It has not "traditionally been 20k for all three companies" to lisence games, as this article claims, either. The PS3 dev kit was 20k and is now 10k, but the Wii's has been less than 5k for some time now, for example.

So many innaccuracies with absolutely no reliable sources. Since it's only a week away I'll wait and see, but the sheer number of errors already shown is a bad sign for the validity of this rumor.

Yeah, this is getting totally out of hand.

Here is a post at Maxconsole:

http://www.maxconsole.net/?mode=news&newsid=24454

Whose source is a link to Wordpress:

http://exgn.wordpress.com/2008/01/21/rumor-ps3-in-store-for-yet-another-price-drop/

Whose source is this collection of forum posts:

http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3831747&postcount=56

And all of those forum posts come from this single thread:

http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?p=9643582#post9643582

Where the discussion was about a 100 dollar gift card for use on the PS3, and then spun out of control. 

Again, not saying it's totally impossible, but given the long list of inaccuracies I detailed above, this looks more like one of those "infinite linkage" rumors, where all the rumor sites link to each other as sources but there isn't any credible source behind any of it, but it seems like it could be true because so many rumor sites are providing links all over the place.

It all comes back to that single thread.  

good investigation work

arent some reports from xbox and ps suppose to come ourt today

if it drops to $300, i could see PS3 selling a million units in that week.

Sony responded when I asked about the rumoured price cut saying

" We have no announcements regarding PS3 price adjustments at this time. "

Which is the expected response, regardless of what is actually happening. If we're going to get a legitimate answer, it's not going to be from Sony frankly. No company can comment on such things.

If it's true, saying yes right now would significantly slow sales for the next week.

If it isn't true, then saying "no" right now would invalidate responses in the future. For example, if we were to ask this question again:

1 month from now: "No."
2 months from now: "No."
3 months from now: "No."
4 months from now: "No comment on pricing changes at this time."

It would be pretty clear what's happening, in that case. No comment is what they have to say. 

--i will wai and see--after all it might justbe one or two stores running specials an then it will crank back up

or to met the numbers they said they will drop the price , flood the market, the cut that sku from the family, and release a new sku back at the high price point