Rumors have been running rampant as it was reported on Gamerandy.com that word has come out from an EBGames and GameStop employee that the PS3 would feature two skus, much like the Xbox 360 launch.
The article goes on to state that there will be a $399 version which will just play games, and a $599 version which will play Blu-Ray movies. Digging further into the article, this site says that you will be able to play Blu-Ray games, but not movies on the $399 version.
When you look at the big picture, this seems, to put it simply, nuts. First of all, if Sony were to do two skus on the PS3, one that played Blu-Ray movies and one that did not, the regular cheaper version would likley outsell since the only downgrade would be that you wouldn't be able to play Blu-Ray movies, of which you will likely own none!
Also another thing which makes this article completely false is that it states that you will be able to play Blu-Ray games on the cheaper version, but not movies. This is a ludicrous statement since if the system was able to play Blu-Ray games, the technology and laser to play the movies, the hardware aspect, would still have to be placed into the system at a cost. The software is not what makes the Blu-Ray player expensive, it is the hardware, the laser which reads the discs and such.
Further dispelling this rumor, an inside source of PS3News.Ca at GameStop stated that he knew of nothing pertaining to this rumor, and stated that if something was concrete, he would know about it. We'll have more as the story breaks, but as of right now, it seems like this rumor is just simply put, not true.