If the PS3 slim comes out for $299 then I will definitely buy one during the holidays to accompany my original PS3.... If there are any left that is because a PS3 slim will probably sell like hot pancakes.

If the PS3 Slim materializes -and I still have serious doubts about this- it will cost the same as the PS3 does now. Sony cannot afford the price cut, and so they will rely on the hardware refresh to spike demand.

My prediction is that this will work about the same as almost all of their other big releases since the PS3's launch: 2-3 weeks of increased demand, and then a crash and burn back to the previous levels.

Don't think a PS3 Slim would have much impact on the market. People not choosing Ps3 is not because its appearance. Ps3 slim is no Ps2 slim.
And I can't see alot of Ps3 owner would get another Ps3.

@ gabriel, every PS3 owner I have seen have all said that they would buy a slim if it came out.

I only said that Sony would rely on the hardware refresh to spike demand; I didn't say it would actually work.

The point of the PS3Slim, should it materialize, would be to cut production costs, so that they can make a profit (or at least stop the bleeding) at the current price point. The savings will not be passed on to the consumer, because Sony can't afford to do that. A few PS3 fans will trade up -Latest And Greatest Syndrome and all that- but probably not as many as Sony is hoping for. But even if nobody upgrades, if they can start making some money on the new consoles then that's still a much better situation than they've been in up until now, so there's no way to completely lose.

Well, I guess there's theoretically one way to lose, in that demand could nose-dive when and if the Slim is launched. But I don't think that's likely. Historically this hasn't happened before, even for hardware refreshes where the price went up (as is common in the handheld market). At worst the post-launch spike is smaller than expected, but it still tends to fade back into the normal demand curve.

I doubt it seeing how much R&D would have been spent making a "slim" version, they won't sell it cheaper unless they have removed a few features, just because the model is smaller doesn't mean it costs any less to make lol, smaller chips, motherboard, cpu all cost a lot of money to start with until they slowly go down on costs, this is when sony could reduce price, this isn't the PS2 where they made a lot of profit from the original then the slim, the original PS3 is still losing money, a slim will do the same.....

PS3 slim download only (no disc drive) confirmed! lol

I can't wait to see what happens if Sony announces a slim PS3 for $300.

Just like Sony said everyone was expected to get two jobs just to pay for the original PS3 when it came out? that went well....

I don't think people realize Sony is only losing 38 dollars per system... the money theyd save on shipping alone would make that up.

Are you saying it costs $40 to ship a PS3 as part of a bulk order? Not likely. Besides, there's no way Sony is losing that little.

Even if they were, though, and even if they did get to the point where they could make a profit at the current price point with the Slim, that is exactly what they would do. The point of the Slim is to make money, not to cut the price, because, just as sane people have been pointing out for months on end now, Sony cannot possibly afford to cut the price. Not even with a Slim. They'll save money on it, sure -that's the whole point- but they will not pass those savings onto consumers. They can't pass those savings onto consumers; they're too desperate for cash right now.