Sony's Kaz Hirai is our best friend in the whole world right now, because he has just stepped to the GamesCom stage and announced the PS3 Slim. Oh, it's a pretty little machine; he's holding it in his arms right now (for live pics, visit the live blog at VG247), and the specs are what PSXE and many others predicted: it will feature a 120GB hard drive, it will be 32% smaller, 36% lighter, have 34% less power consumption and, oh yes, it will only cost $299 in the US and 299 Euros in Europe. And what else does this mean? This means the current 80GB PS3 will receive a big ol' price drop starting today, and the PS3 Slim will be rarin' to go on store shelves in the first week of September! Hirai says it will vary a bit by country, but that's the estimated launch period. The biggest news of the day by a long shot and although we didn't get the announcement of a Gran Turismo 5 launch date, we assume that will come at the Tokyo Game Show next month.

And that's that. Sony's press conference is over and we have the super huge announcement we've all been waiting for. Anyone else wanna celebrate?SOURCE