Here in Genoa at Euronics I've just seen today the PS3 80GB + LBP bundle at 379€ compared to its 399€ list price, while OTOH the bundle with a BluRay movie, Batman Begins, was overpriced, 429€ instead of 399€. BluRay still considered a major selling point? And what was even stranger, these offers weren't mentioned in their 6-24 December leaflet...

Interesting, same happens here in Switzerland. A few weeks ago, bundles started tio appear in some shop for $40 less than MSRP. The following weeks, more and more shops followed with other bundles and similar pricecuts. Right now, the MSRP is still SFr 649/699 and prices are anywhere from 549 to 699 depending on bundle and shop. The cheapest way is a shop that technically sells it at 499 (you have to read the vouchers carefully, I "sold" 3 PS3s to families that did not read the fine print careful enough at first). If that is a Sony sanctioned/tolerated thing or shops want to clear stock, who knows?

It's standard in the UK too, retailers promote certain bundles with price drops.

I've seen something like that in Canada, the 160gb bundles have risen in price by $20.

That's probably a currency exchange correction. In Switzerland, you can walk inzo any shop at any place and pay the same price for the consoles (weekly special deals excluded). What happens now with the eroding PS3 prices has never happened before.

Funny thing is that i was thinking about making a similar thread . I was at mediamarkt today and they had ps3 +resistance2 (offial bundle by sony BTW )+ COD5 + 2nd controller all for 430 euros !!! I live in greece .

The absence of the best offers from leaflets suggests what most observers are reporting about sales of most expensive goods during this crisis: there are a lot of unofficial last time discount, taylored each time to meet the reduced propensity for expenditure. While higher price on the BD movie PS3 bundle seems to confirm the increased success of BD (or maybe total ineptitude of the store manager, you can't never know for sure! ).

We have something similar in certain stores:

LBP / MS2 / R2 bundle (choose one) + controller + additional game from a fixed list => 420 euros

other bundles (store-made I think) included 5 older titles + one of the main three Sony exclusives for 430 or something.

Now that I saw PS3 heavily advertised as a BD player and read news about very good sales for some BD movies, amongst which Dark Night, I can understand a little more the high price on PS3 + Batman Begins bundle, while given high list price and the crisis the discount on PS3 + LBP bundle was more understandable. Having to cut corners offering discounts that they would have never offered before Xmas in the past, the stores try to recover some money on some most hyped items. But all consoles piles in the store were almost intact, only a few Wiis, XB360 Arcades, PS2 bundles and PS3 + LBP bundles were missing, people were mostly buying cheaper items or domestic appliances, crisis is not apocalyptic, but nevertheless real.

Well, considering some big software releases are 'failing' at the moment, and films like the dark knight have smashed blu-ray records, im not susprised in Sony increase the focus on the blu-ray aspect of the PS3