As was expected, Sony made a couple big announcement at Gamescom this week. The PS3 got the awaited price reduction and pulled a lipo on the way. Sure, the fat version will still be available, for the new $300 price, but the PS3 costs the same. Why not go smaller, eh?

The new PS3 has all the same specs as the “full-figured” version and adds a 120GB hard drive. There’s also apparently been an FCC filing for a 250GB version, which gives Sony a sorely needed leg-up on Microsoft. With the impending price reduction, it will be interesting to see if Sony can regain some of its market share.

Sadly, with all the same internals, Sony didn’t add backwards compatibility to the mix. I know it’s more complicated than just slapping it on the hard drive, but that announcement would certainly have blown some panties off. This one, though not undergarment-shredding, is still pretty sweet.

With Sony’s CEO weighing in on the PS3 price cut rumors, it’s hard not to focus on all of the people begging for it to happen and how unhappy they are with the platform. Well not everyone is as riled up as Activision. In fact, some folks, some very important folks, are actually enjoying their PS3 development.

The good tidings come from none other than BioWare, famed developers of Mass Effect and the upcoming Dragon Age: Origins. In fact, it’s DA:O they’ve been having so much fun with. Talking to videogamer.com, the DA:O team called developing for the PS3 “exciting,” and said they’re “really pumped” to be working with the platform. Sounds a little contrived, but they get more specific as the article goes on.

It’s funny, we had extra graphic memory left over on the PS3. We were like, wow! So we actually started putting some of the audio bits in there and stuff. It’s a function of effort. Overall, pretty happy with how it’s turning out.

With all the bad news spewing forth about PS3 development, it’s nice to see a little good in there, especially if you’re a PS3 owner.

This headline may be a bit misleading, since there really is no list, and even if there was half the interested world would be on the thing. Still, Tecmo Koei has gone public with concerns about PS3 prices, and they aren’t the first.

CEO Kenji Matsubara told CVG this week that “from a publisher’s point of view we would welcome a price cut for PS3 and we are waiting, definitely.” He also said he asks for the price cut whenever pricing comes up with the Sony reps with whom he deals. As more developers and publishers go public with price concerns you have to wonder when Sony is going to listen. It’s obviously getting harder and harder to justify developing for a console that has the lowest installed base of its generation yet remains at such a high price.

For now, Sony doesn’t want to do anything. Today, Howard Stringer said his company’s decision to maintain the price of the PS3 comes down to pure logic. “I (would) lose money on every PlayStation I make – how’s that for logic,” he told press at the Allen & Co. conference in Idaho.

Fine logic for now, Mr. Stringer, but you’ll probably lose your job if game developers drop your platform.