Sony has announced that Japan is set to follow Europe in getting a PS3 price cut and the introduction of the 40GB, non backwards-compatible PS3.

Japan's existing PS3 Stock Keeping Units (SKU) - the 20Gb and 60Gb models - will both see price cuts of 5,000 yen (£21) to 44,980 yen (£188.96) and 54,980 yen (£231) respectively.

The 40GB PS3, meanwhile, will actually sell for less than the 20Gb SKU, with a price of 39,980 yen (£168). Bear in mind that the 20Gb version comes without WiFi or card reader.

The news follows the European announcement of the 40GB PS3 alongside a price cut on the 60GB SKU. We're now left to wonder, however, whether one of the existing Japanese SKUs will be allowed to sell out as it was revealed yesterday will happen to the 60GB PS3 over here.

SCEI is obviously uncomfortable with having two SKUs on the market, with the 20GB PS3 never having made it over here and having been dropped in the States, followed by the phasing out of the 60GB PS3 in the US and its aforementioned drop over here.

In Japan, however, Sony has remained surprisingly steadfast in its production of the 20GB PS3. With Sony America's dropping of the SKU, it was widely anticipated that the model would be killed in Japan. To date, however, it remains on the market. Could it be that Sony has more faith in its Japanese customers to not be bamboozled by more than one kind of PS3 on the market than it does in us Westerners?