BlackBerry PlayBook On Sale; Headed for Tablet Graveyard?

Have you been on the fence whether or not you should buy a Blackberry Playbook?

Major retailers started slashing the price of the Blackberry Playbook just hours after Amazon unveiled the Kindle Fire tablet which carries an appealing $199 price tag.

Best Buy has knocked off $200 on each BlackBerry Playbook model, selling the 16GB version for $299, the 32GB Playbook for $399 & the 64GB Playbook for $499. The 16GB BlackBerry Playbook is currently on backorder as of Thursday morning.

Both Staples & Office Depot are also offering discounts on the Playbook tablet line, although they only offer a $100 discount per model.

[Update 10/3: Staples is now offering a $200 discount on the Playbook as well]

BlackBerry PlayBook to Go the Way of the HP TouchPad?

Considering what happened with the HP TouchPad, rumors are already starting to swirl over whether or not Research In Motion is going to bail on the Blackberry Playbook. It wasn’t too long ago that Hewlett-Packard attempted to jump-start sales by slashing $100 off the cost of the HP TouchPad shortly before just pulling the plug altogether.

The idea of the Blackberry Playbook suffering the same fate isn’t too far-fetched considering only 200,000 Playbooks shipped last quarter. That sales number pales in comparison to Apple's iPad selling 9.3 million units in the same timeframe.

So far RIM has denied that they’re ceasing production on the BlackBerry Playbook and bowing out of the tablet market. A spokesperson for RIM took to email earlier and issued the following statement following the rumors:

"RIM doesn’t typically comment on rumors, but any suggestion that the BlackBerry PlayBook is being discontinued is pure fiction. RIM remains highly committed to the tablet market.”

We’ll see if they’re still singing the same tune when Amazon’s Kindle Fire starts shipping on November 15th.