It's pretty obvious that the 80GB will go to $500 once the 60GB is gone. There may be some time delay while they make sure the 60GB is *really* gone everywhere but eventually it'll happen. It's a good way to make it seem like they cut the price twice when it was only once, and they up their profit margins a lot at the same time, especially by removing the EE.
As for when, well let's look at how many 60GB are out there. As of March 31st, they'd made 5.5 million of them. In the last three months, they could've made anywhere from 2-3 million more, maybe as much as 4 million, though we have no way of knowing how many of these are 80GB it probably isn't that many since they aren't coming 'till August. The PS3 has sold about 3.7 million now, leaving anywhere from 1.8-4.8 million models sitting on store shelves or in Sony warehouses or in transit.
Now lately NA and PAL sales have been about equal with Japan sales about half. So let's say 40% of the leftover stock is for NA units, so 700k to 2 million 60GB left in NA right now. The PS3 has been selling about 25k a week in NA, or 100k a month (being generous). So at the $500 price point, let's be generous again and say sales double to 200k a month. Then maybe 300k in November and 600k in December, wild guesses here.
So if there's as few as 700k units on NA shelves, 60GB would last through mid-October and the 80GB would drop just in time for GTA. If there's as many as 2 million, the 60GB wouldn't run out until early 2008 and Sony cashes in on the Xmas crowd with the bundle in the meantime. I'm predicting right around Thanksgiving, so that they can have a massive December blowout with the 80GB $500 model, which suddenly looks a lot better (somehow) than the 60GB at $500 does now.
As a consumer though I'd rather have the 20GB at $400. :>
