Few things are quite as sweet as rumor becoming reality. Remember those leaked photos of the PS3 'Slim' that hit the Internet a couple of weeks back? Well, we finally have some fairly solid confirmation that they are, in fact, real. Shortly after the pictures ran, several tech websites that showed the picture received cease-and-desist notices.

The notices stated that the pictures contained 'confidential information', which is confirmation that they're real pictures of something secret. That's not all we've got, though. Ars Technica received word from a mole that in the past has been "100% accurate". The mole stated that the PS3 Slim is in development, although it will not be released at E3 as we'd previously thought.

The reason? Sony wants to liquidate as much of their current PS3 stock as possible. When retailers start to run out, probably sometime in the fall, Sony will announce the release of the PS3 'Slim'. The fact that they are waiting to offload their old inventory probably means that the Slim will be equal to the current PS3 in terms of processing power and peripherals. It also makes it likely that we'll see a substantial price drop in current PS3s so that Sony can get them off the shelves faster.

So the Slim is real, but it won't be hitting E3 this year. What will make the Expo is the much-anticipated PSP-Go. The Go, which is a smaller, UMD-less PSP, has been confirmed by the same mole as being slated for unveiling at E3. The PSP-Go will be lighter, use less power, and cost less than the PSP. We're just a few days away from E3, so we should have confirmation of this rumor very soon.