Was it going to be turfed?

Could the company stave off the threat to its market share by Microsoft, creator of the Xbox 360, plus Nintendo, owner of the exceptionally popular Wii?

Would Sony redesign the sexy, albeit sightly overweight, PS3, dumbing down the system at the same time to cut some of the sharp points of the system's retail price?

Well, at least one of the rumours have proven to be true _ yes, Sony is scaling back the size of the PlayStation 3, but the company promises the changes will mean anything but a weakening of what is, in this game reviewer's opinion, at least, the best console on the market.

Sony on Wednesday said the PS3's shape would be streamlined, it's 80-gig hard drive bumped up to a not-so-meagre 20 gigabytes and, most importantly, the price tag of the system is dropping.

The systems that are currently on the market will have a significant price drop as the company prepares to roll out the new console (pictured) ahead of the all-important pre-Christmas sales season.

While the system may not get the massive pick-up of Nintendo's family-friendly Wii, the pricing alone should make the choice a lot easier for new-console buyers hovering between the PS3 and Microsoft's system.

The new PlayStation, expected to be available in Australia on September 3 for $499.95, keeps its Blu-ray disk drive, and free access to, and gameplay through, the PlayStation network.

The Xbox 360, which retails for around the same price with a hard drive, and about $100 cheaper without a hard drive, does not have the high definition Blu-ray disk drive and subscription to online-play access on Microsoft's Xbox Live costs around $100 a year.

Sony said the internal components of the PS3 had been redesigned to two-thirds the original system's size, as has its power consumption.

The PS3 will maintain its curved body with a new PS3 logo and external coating.