Maybe Sony is beginning to change their mind about the PS3’s punishing pricing strategy? This leaked Best Buy bundle, said to be available next Sunday, nets you a PS3, Killzone 2, and Metal Gear Solid 4 for the current price of the console alone.

That’s a slap in the face for anyone that bought an 80GB PS3 in the last month, but let’s be honest: how many of them can there really be?

Sony seems to be less happy with the PS3 sales numbers than one could think. Or why else would they cooperate with the Taiwanese government to make local developers create more games for their console?

Yesterday Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs has closed a cooperation deal with Sony that centers on the areas of human resources and financing. The aim of the project is to increase a bigger user and developer base in Taiwan that could then help create PS3 games suitable for the much bigger game market in mainland China.

Attempting to quell earlier reports that they’ve signed an agreement with Sony to build the rumored PS3 Slim, Foxconn issued an official “no comment” statement with the Taiwan Stock Exchange today.

The secrecy over the PS3 Slim continues to unravel with news that Foxconn have been contracted to manufacture and ship the updated model starting next month. The report from UDN does not explicitly say that the smaller version of the current platform will be sold anytime soon, but it falls in line with what Ars’s Mole leaked over the weekend. However, UDN states that an updated PS3 will be launched in the Spring. Me thinks they’re just referring to the motion control system and not a brand new console revision.

Gamers of a certain age will remember the Official Nintendo Seal of Quality. It was a little mark placed on official Nintendo products in the NES/SNES era (well, that’s when it mattered) that let buyers know that, yes, this product has been blessed by Nintendo. It will not harm you, your cat or your NES. Fast-forward several years and now Sony has gotten into the business of slapping their logo on officially licensed gear with the “Official Licensed Product” gimmick.

Think back to the autumn of 2006, right before the big PS3 launch. Expecting someone to pay five-hundred-and-ninety-nine-U.S.-dollars was (rightly) considered ludicrous, but the ability to play the entire PS2 library on the system somewhat lessened the blow. But then Sony removed the Emotion Engine chip from the PS3, thus rendering it unable to play PS2 games. (More recent models, like the one found in the Metal Gear Solid 4 bundle, used a just-sorta-okay software emulation method to grant partial PS2 backwards compatibility.) All that may well change if Sony goes ahead and executes the idea found in this recently unearthed patent.

The Mole, as Ars affectionately refers to its gaming industry insider, has once again struck with a ‘rumor’ detailing Microsoft and Sony’s plans for their respective consoles this year. In case you’re super busy this Monday morning, I’ll break it down for you real quick. Expect to see bigger hard drives in the Xbox 360 and a slimmed down version of the PS3.

Quite a polemic we’re dealing with, friends. It seems that, suddenly, the PS3 is no longer able to play Hulu content. I just tried to play the Power Rangers movie on my brother’s PS3, and up pops the message: “Unfortunately, this video is not available on your platform. We apologize for any inconvenience.”

Tired of your black DualShock3? Well then get thee to GameStop before the end of September, where $54.99 will nab you a “satin silver” one. That’s what it looks like, right there.

A bit of World of Warcraftnews for you this Thursday afternoon. If given the chance, how many of you would play the game on your Xbox 360 or PS3? It doesn’t even matter, as Blizzard’s executive vice-president of game design, Rob Pardo, said that producing a console version of the game would run into a whole host of challenges that would need to be overcome. Chief among them: an input device. Do you go create a specially designed WoW controller, or leave it up to people to bring their own mouse and keyboard?

PlayStation 3 owners can get ahold the Game of the Year Edition of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare for just $29 with free shipping, today only.

In an interview with The Times Online, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick made it very clear that if Sony does not lower the price of the PS3 then the games publisher will cease support for the console.

Here’s that PS3 price drop everyone’s been waiting for — sort of. Amazon’s got the 80GB PlayStation 3 for $349.99, down from $399. This is a one-day deal, so get it while it’s hot as they say.

Still fretting over the price of the PS3? Well, if one analyst proves accurate, then Sony will cut the price of the PS3 by $100 in mid-August. And if “mid-August” sounds vaguely familiar to you, that’s because it is! That’s when EA releases Madden, a game that, somehow, still sells a boatload every year. (Note: I have never bought a Madden game. Imagine that!)

If Sony’s talk of exclusive PlayStation games got you all hot and bothered yesterday, you might be happy to find out that one of those exclusives, LittleBigPlanet, is selling for a measly $30.

Are any of you ardent Sony PS3 supporters concerned with the way things have turned out? You lost Final Fantasy exclusivity (well, outside of Japan) at last year’s E3, and Metal Gear this year. Those are two of the biggest franchises that made PlayStation what it is today. Or what it was yesterday, as it were. I’m just trying to think, if I were to buy a PS3 today, what’s in it for me?

Well, it’s not the news we were expecting but it looks like Best Buy will be getting a new PS3 bundle a week after E3. Already in the BB database is a limited edition 80GB PlayStation 3 bundle that includes two yet to be announced games.

Contrary to popular belief, I was not a big fan of the movie adaption of the Watchmen, but I didn’t think it was terrible. Anyway, the Blu-ray Director’s Cut will include the The End is Nigh PS3 game, Parts 1 and 2 of Watchmen: The End is Nigh film hybrid as well as the Director’s Cut that includes 25 minutes of extra footage.