The PS3 Slim becomes a reality.

After months of rumours and leaked factory shots, the slim version of the Playstation 3 was announced by Sony early this morning at GamesCom 09 in Cologne, Germany.

Sony Computer Entertainment CEO Kaz Hirai unveils the Slim.

The new model is released in Australia on September 1 (that's two weeks away!) and it will be priced at AUD $499.95. The US price is UD$299 which works out to be about $360 Australian, but it's pointless whinging about that discrepancy I suppose.

Here's the old next to the new.

The PS3 Slim runs on a new 45nm cell processor instead of the old 60nm model, so that's means it's smaller and more energy efficient. The power consumption has been cut by two thirds and the model itself is 33% smaller and 36% lighter. All of the features of the big original model will be retained. Also, it comes standard with a 120g hard drive.

Finally, Sony has woken up to fact that not everyone has an ass-load of money to spend on their product. Every current model of the PS3 on shelves right now will be reduced to $499 as of August 24 prior to the release of the Slim.

Oh, you're mine now sucka.