It looks increasingly like the reassuringly expensive Playstation 3 will stay just that - Expensive. As Sony puts the kibosh on any rumours that the next-gen console will be marked down in price.

With E3 just around the corner, Sony said it is not going to follow Microsoft's lead as it widely expected to cut the price of a 360 Pro to $299 (£150), making it a round $100 cheaper that the Blu-Ray equipped box.

According to Sony's Chief Financial Officer Nobuyuki Oneda any talk of a reduction is folly for the company.

"Our strategy is not to sell more quantity for PS3 but to concentrate on profitability. Our plan is not to reduce the price," he said.

While the Xbox 360 roundly beat PS3 in terms of sales in 2007 (both these consoles have been overshadowed by the runaway success of the Nintendo Wii), this year has seen the PS3 come back with a vengeance with titles such as Metal Gear Solid 4:Guns of the Patriots and the victory over HD-DVD in the high definition video formats.

Meanwhile, Sony finally push out a non-broken version of the PS3's firmware 2.41. Firmware 2.40 had managed to screw up a few consoles, so this week the company manage to fix whatever problems were in the original release.

The new update still includes features such as the new Trophy system and in-game Cross-Media Bar functionality.

"We want to extend our apologies to the PlayStation community for any inconvenience," PlayStation Network director Eric Lempel wrote. "Now we'll be looking forward to seeing everyone online and racking up those Trophies!"

As reported by Absolute Gadget, anti-virus firms warned gamers that pages on the US-based Sony PlayStation website have been compromised by hackers.