In a post-results analyst call attended by Gamasutra, DeMatteo called the revenue stream for digital distribution "pretty insignificant"

PS3 unfortunately won't see a price this year because Sony can't afford to lose money for a third consecutive year and because sales will be good even without a price cut, they have momentum behind them and this will be the first big holyday season for Blu Ray which for the first time is gonna help PS3.
Sony has basically unveiled their holyday strategy already.
If there was a price cut in store they wouldn't have announced a 499$ bundle scheduled for November just yeasterday.
The only possible thing are bundles with the 80GB model while keeping the price at 399$.

so ps3 $350 and $450?

and gamestop refurbed $300 and $400?

that would be a big boost

 well im thinking that gamestop is making the $50 price cut on all the old sku's

so 20gb,40gb,60gb,80gb(the one before the new 80gb lol) and all the refurb one's might get the -$50

they can afford it. and it will clear out of the inventory of old ps3 sku's to make room for the new bundles/sku's. actually might be a good move for gamestop and sony...

with M$ making the arcade $200 in September, A Gamestop $50 price cur before christmas would make it $149

Yes and no. Sony could probably afford to have a price drop without losing a significant amount of money because the PS3 should be profitable by now. It cost $400 dollars for Sony to manufacture a PS3 back in January so by now I wouldn't be surprised if that number has fallen to $375 or even $350. However, doing so would go against Sony's desire to concentrate on profitability and like you said, Sony really doesn't need a price-drop this holiday season since it will likely still outsell the 360 despite the price-drop thanks to the biggest blu-ray rush ever, the boosts of the new SKUs, and the fact that PS3's upcoming games this year will sell more consoles than the 360's.

Still, to say that Sony won't drop the price of the PS3 simply because they announced a bundle at another price is not a good determination since Microsoft just announced the 60GB model 360 and will be droping it's price just a few weeks after it's launch.

Yup but Microsoft is already selling the 60GB at 349$ while they clear the old 20GB units and it's August.

Sony has just announced a 499$ price for their top SKU in NOVEMBER. It would make no sense to cut the price after november. So at this point it's clear that Sony will go through this year with the 80GB and 160GB models at 399$ and 499$.

I guess that they will cut the price down to 299$ next spring after an other hardware revision with 45nm Cell (at that point maybe they could make a slim unit).

Brick&Mortar store says downloadable content not important. News at nine.

I mean they are correct currently it will not make a big part of their revenue but it could grow pretty fast.

I agree with that statement.

This might help sales...