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In less than a year since the launch of the PS3, Sony has released five SKUs in various regions (20GB, 40GB, 60GB Some, 60GB Full and 80GB) all with different pricing in various regions and erratic discontinuations and price cuts
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When you make this type of analysis, you shouldn't add ALL the sku released in the WORLD market and consider ALL the price drop.

You should separate the 3 markets :

PAL : 2 sku in 1 year, the offer is quite simple
Japan : 2 sku, simple offer again
USA : 2 sku, simple offer again

The average customer will not care about what happens in USA if he is European for example.

Conclusion : the PS3 is "quite" simple all over the world.
(Even if it is still better to only have 1 sku like the Wii...)

As far as I know, that's not how VAT works... 399/1.21 = 329.75 € (price without VAT). Therefore VAT is 70 euros.

But, since we are talking about currency conversion, people should know that there's more involved than just VAT:

- Import taxes (since PS3s are manufactured outside the EU).

- EU recycling fees.

- Higher retailer margins.

- The US$ is falling in value.

Consider all that and the prices are probably about the same in the EU as they're in the US. 

PS3 40gb on USA : 2 november ?

anyone has a link to confirm or not ?

Thanks for the correction!

Also local employees (such as support people, for example US XBox 360 RRoD victims are often greeted by cheaper Indian support staff) may cost more and other localizations (like language translation) probably cost more as well.